The Mark Twain Prize Debacle: Another Reason to De-Fund PBS

Tina Fey, the Saturday Night Live performer who deftly satirized Sarah Palin, recently received the Mark Twain Prize at the Kennedy Center in Washington. PBS broadcast much of the awards ceremony but deleted the most pointed paragraph in Fey’s acceptance speech in which she mock-praised “conservative women” such as Palin:

“And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women – except, of course –those who will end up, you know, like, paying for their own rape ‘kit ‘n’ stuff,” Fey said. “But for everybody else, it’s a win-win. Unless you’re a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years – whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know – actually, I take it back. The whole thing’s a disaster.”

It is a crime against taxpayers to have government funding for an organization that would delete that type of political riff. It would also be a crime against taxpayers for the feds to bankroll the broadcasting of that type of riff.

And another thing: having a government-funded, government-founded organizatoin passing the Mark Twain Prize is also a farce. Trusting government-subsidized tools to judge humor simply guilds the path to servitude.