Hmm, yeah, Lucas sarcastically joking about it is possible. I'm assuming good faith on the author's comments since I never heard the commentary myself (very rarely will I ever watch a movie again with commentary on), and it is problematic that he didn't specify who was saying it in the commentary, a producer, an actor, etc. I still laughed at reading this though and thought it'd be a shame if it was excised for good, assuming it's factual!