The Drive-by Media is taking cheap shots at the late country music legend Toby Keith. He died last night after a long battle with stomach cancer. Keith was 62.
The media described Keith as “polarizing” and the Associated Press accused him of “overt patriotism.” As if that was a bad thing?
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Keith often wore his politics on his sleeve, especially after the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in 2001, and early on he said was a conservative Democrat, but later claimed he was an independent. He’s played at events for Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the latter giving him a National Medal of the Arts in 2021. His songs and his blunt opinions sometimes caused him controversy, which he seemed to court.
Associated Press
His 2002 song, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” drew the ire of leftists across the nation — including many within the Country music industry.
“I wrote that song as a gift to our military. I wrote it to raise their spirits in a difficult time,” he told the New York Post. “It’s a kick-their-ass-song, and they loved it at the Naval Academy. A few weeks later, I did it at the Pentagon, and there are people who say there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”
Singer-songwriter Steve Earle called Keith’s song “pandering to people’s worst instincts at a time they are hurt and scared.”
Then there was the feud between Keith and The Chicks (formerly called the Dixie Chicks), who became a target of Keith’s ire when singer Natalie Maines told a crowd that they were ashamed of then President George W. Bush. Maines had also previously called Keith’s song “ignorant.”
The song captured the soul of the American people in the aftermath of the 2001 Muslim terrorists attacks. And Keith’s lyrics reflected the anger and the resolve of the nation.
“We’ll put a boot up your ass, it’s the American way,” the lyrics read.
“I was real angry when I saw that second plane hit that tower and wondered what my dad would have thought about it. And the lyrics just fell out of me,” he told CNN’s TalkBack Live.
Keith told CNN he had not planned on releasing the song, but when he saw the reaction from troops he knew he had to do it.
“The response was so tremendous, I said, ‘Hey, we’re allowed to be angry.’ I know how angry I was when I saw those towers come down, and this is my way of serving my country,” Keith said in an interview on CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Reports.
But the song got pulled from a patriotic ABC Fourth of July special after producers deemed it too angry for the show.
“They said Mr. Jennings didn’t like the lyric content, and this wasn’t going to be on his show,” he said, referring to then-ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, a Canadian. “Let’s make sure that everybody knows that it’s not because we weren’t booked on there. It was because of lyric content.”
Jennings objected to lyrics like, “Justice will be served and the battle will rage – This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage – And you’ll be sorry that you messed with the U S of A – ’Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass – It’s the American way.”
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