We’ve been nosing around over at WETA, the Washington area public broadcasting channel that helps produce the “Capitol Fourth” show each year. The script and “continuity” documents for the show had been in the works for months, and according to folks we talk to on the “corporate” side of things, were scrubbed for “sensitivity” issues.

At some point, the issue of the scrubbing came up and according to one source we spoke with, “When it was pointed out that changing President Lincoln’s words might outrage some people, the response was essentially, ‘It’s the people who would be outraged that we didn’t change it that we need to think about. They are the ones who are paying our salaries.'”

Yes, but perhaps they should be thinking about all of those who ponied up the dough for this ridiculous devolution into PC hell. According to our sources, the show is co-produced by WETA with a private production company called Capital Concerts, which also produces the Memorial Day concert in DC. The show’s budget was covered largely by a corporate grant from defense contractor, Lockheed Martin Corporation, and then extremely generous “grants” from taxpayers like you. The National Park Service, the Department of the Army, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting all were willing to spend your money so that a few Hollywood elites and has-been singers could preach to the American public.

When we asked folks over at WETA just how much taxpayer money went to produce the show, they got real quiet, which could mean they didn’t know, or, perhaps the figure is just too embarrassing for them to mention out loud. But really, how expensive could Jason Alexander be?