Toby Meets The Press

Maybe it was motivated by the recent controversy sparked by a Ethan Hawke story in Rolling Stone, or maybe not. Either way, Keith joked he was ready for whatever the media had made ready for him.

“I’ll take you all on,” he joked, according to the Tulsa World. “I don’t care. Bring it baby.”

Keith says he’s misunderstood by the popular media, and he may have a point. He’s been associated with lots of red, white and blue with a bring-it-on mentality. But Keith wanted to make clear that the media coverage is unfair and sometimes the headline doesn’t even match the story.

The meet-the-press moment came on the heels of a story in Rolling Stone where Ethan Hawke, in a biography of Kris Kristofferson, recounted a testy backstage exchange between the songwriter and a country star, which by all accounts was meant to be Toby Keith. The “country star” told Kristofferson “None of that lefty shit out there tonight, Kris.”

Keith took umbrage at the account, noting that when Hawke recounted the exchange, he named names – Norah Jones, Willie Nelson, Ray Charles – but, when it came to the “country star,” only a description was available. Keith has implied there’s a reason for that: protection from libel.

Keith said his “lefty friends” think he’s a Nazi and his righty friends think he’s a hippie. Keith noted he came from a family of Democrats.

“It really freaks people out when they find out I’m a Democrat,” Keith said. “It really does because they’ve read so much lies and stuff in the press that they just assume that I am a right-wing loco.”

But why should this information come in the way of a good story? The Associated Press didn’t write about Keith’s criticism of the press nor his claim that he isn’t on the fringe of politics. The story, instead, was that he wasn’t running for political office, based upon a single response to a question.

Keith arrived wearing a uniform issued by the military and left that evening for his USO tour. He has performed about 100 USO shows over the last seven years, Keith noted. According to sources, Keith has provided Iraq vets with tickets and meet & greets, but hasn’t made a spectacle of it.

Click here for the Tulsa World article.