Note: this video clip above contains the 30 seconds or so PBS decided not to air. The full program as aired can be seen at this PBS link for The Mark Twain Prize.

Via Paul Fahri at the Washington Post:

Tina Fey got a little political airbrushing from PBS Sunday night during its annual broadcast of the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Fey, this year's recipient of the prize, caused a few ripples during her acceptance speech at the ceremony on Tuesday when she mock-praised "conservative women" like Sarah Palin, whom Fey has so memorably impersonated on "Saturday Night Live."

"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."

So was this blatant censorship? Absolutely not, says PBS.

"It was not a political decision," responded Peter Kaminsky, one of the broadcast's executive producers. "We had zero problems with anything she said."

But with the 90-minute show running about 19 minutes long after the taping Tuesday night, a few things had to give, Kaminsky said. "We took a lot out," he said. "We snipped from everyone."

This isn't the first time editors have stepped on a Twain recipient's bit. When George Carlin was posthumously awarded the prize in 2008, the show's producers spared the ears of the Kennedy Center audience by bleeping out the naughty parts from a video of Carlin doing his famous "Seven Dirty Words" routine. Thus, a monologue about words you couldn't say on television became one you couldn't say in the Kennedy Center, either.

Irony is dead.