Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (Revisited)

Last weekend, some anonymous country station between DC and Norfolk turned back the clock a decade and spun Toby Keith's ass-kicking anthem, "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)." The song, Keith's direct response to September 11, flew up the charts, reaching country's number one spot by the beginning of the following summer. The song itself perhaps needs little introduction; Keith has a bold (some might say inane) message: you hit us, and now you're going to pay.



I spent the better part of my senior year of undergrad listening and studying this song as part of my "comps" (a sort of senior thesis) on the politics of commercial country music. This was three years after the song had come out, and my perspective (like others', I suspect) then was a little different. Afghanistan had practically come and gone -- we won, right? -- Iraq was on everyone's mind then. Toby Keith's promise to "light up their world like it's the Fourth of July" presumably had already happened. At the time, the song still spoke to a residual anger over 9/11, a feeling that military action had been and continued to be completely necessary. This was, of course, before the majority of Americans concerned themselves with the actual act(s) of waging war and/or the populations upon which that war was to be waged. So, because Keith doesn't come right out and say it, up exactly whose ass was he threatening to put his boot?

Given references to Al Qaeda and the Taliban elsewhere in his foreign policy songbook, it's likely some nebulous combination of the two and a little Saddam Hussein as well. Yet times have changed. The Taliban have been pushed out of Kabul, but they're still alive and kicking quite violently both in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan. Keith sang, "Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list / And the Statue of Liberty started shaking her fist"... well, Tobes, they're still at the top of that list. And Secretary Gates has readily admitted some kind of reconciliation with the Taliban is possible. Not exactly the kind of uncompromising destruction promised in song, is it now?

Keith opens his tune with this little ode to honoring our veterans, the only part of the song that holds up to much serious inquiry. Back in 2002, Keith was the poster boy for a particular strand of patriotism that demanded uncritical support of full engagement in the occupation of two foreign countries and the financial and military support of a handful more (Keith is no Tea Party Republican, mind you). I think we've grown up a little since then, our vantage point on the wars and the world has grown considerably more nuanced. We've been humbled by the limits of American military might, and, for all that initial bluster, we've proven rather unwilling to stomach the sacrifices necessary to win. Keith just talked like the playground bully. You hit me, and now I'm going to pummel you. Oh, except that pummeling will take over 9 years and billions upon billions of dollars I don't really have. And, oh, while I pummel you I'd like to nurse you back to health too.

"Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" set us up with unreasonable expectations, ones our military and diplomatic corps could never live up to. I'd be curious to hear what Keith thinks about that now, if he does at all.