Seeing the true Toby Keith

I gather Toby Keith wants people to realize that he is a complex, thoughtful man struggling with the issues of the day, as he tries to “do the math” on the war in Iraq (“The Less Angry American,” by Geoff Boucher, Aug. 26). If so, why did he write and record his jingoistic anthem, appealing to the lowest common denominators of the American psyche: aggressive, violent, reactionary machismo?

Why did he get into a vulgar, public feud with an artist (Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks) who dared to express an opinion different from his own? If he wants us to believe that he is somehow an artist and a thinking man, that train is long gone; he has proved he is neither.

Michele Greene

Los Angeles

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I’M sorry to hear the war in Iraq didn’t work out for Toby Keith, especially since he helped sell it to his fellow citizens. It also didn’t work out for thousands of dead Iraqi civilians and more than 300 coalition troops, half of whom have died since President Bush’s aircraft carrier celebration.

John W. Siegel

Paso Robles