Toby Keith for Obama?

OK, pretend you didn't read the headline to this story. Now, have a look at the following quote:

"So as far as leadership and patriotism goes, I think it's really important that those things have to take place. And I think he's [Obama is] the best Democratic candidate we've had since Bill Clinton. And that's coming from a Democrat."

Be honest. Would you have ever, in a million years, attributed it to country music star Toby Keith? The baritone patriot who regularly confuses viewers of "The Colbert Report" is, if you didn't already know, famous for such anthem-like lyrics as:

Oh, justice will be served and the battle will rage:
This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage.
An' you'll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A.
'Cos we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way.

But if you think that Keith's vote is in the bag for Obama, you'd do well to consider a recent exchange between Keith and firebrand talk-show host, Glenn Beck, during which Keith remarked:

"I think the black people would say he [Obama] don't talk, act or carry himself as a black person."

"What does that even mean?" the audibly shocked Beck replied.

"Well, I don't know what that means," Keith drawled, "but I think that that's what they would say. Even though the black society would pull for him I still think that they think in the back of their mind that the only reason he is in [the general election] is because he talks, and carries himself as a Caucasian."

And, as Slate's Max Blumenthal notes in The Huffington Post, there's Keith's Texas-style approach to the problem of crime. In his song, "Beer for My Horses," Keith sings of a series of injustices: car theft, battery, destruction of property, etc. that all seem to warrant the same old-fashioned response:

Grandpappy told my pappy back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he'd done
Take all the rope in Texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street
For all the people to see

It's unclear whether, as Blumenthal believes, this is a call to bring back public lynchings or simply a fictitious yearning for simple solutions to societal problems. Lonewacko, a right-leaning blogger, even argues that Keith was merely calling for "lawful" executions -- though this writer wasn't aware that stealing cars was a capital crime in the Lone Star State.

So, the question remains. Who gets Toby Keith's vote? It ain't the Dixie Chicks, that's for sure.