Yeah...ummm... I like that Ke$ha song.
I don't think the issue is what constitutes "country" or if Sheryl Crow is a good songwriter. Pop songs are meant to be disposable but the good ones have longevity by sneaking in some kind of greater artistic relevance. I have no feeling one way or the other about Sheryl Crow's music, though I generally change the station whenever it comes on; I'd rather hear something else but I don't hate it. I like the synth lines in the Ke$ha song and the melody, but find the lyrics inane and pointless.
And as for "real" country, very few successful country artists every truly lived the lives they sing about. My family used to look down on our cousins, the Carter Family, because rather than work and farm, they "played" music. They were regarded as too lazy to make an honest living off the land. Ironically, it is the music they played which will probably be the last vestige of the small rural family farms to survive modern culture. It is with no small contempt that I sneer at the modern faux country culture with its poser suburbanites who have never had to get up before dawn to feed or fence, never plowed a field or picked a crop, and think that outfitting themselves from head to toe in Realtree camo and oversized belt buckles makes up for that. Hell yes I'm an elitist, paid for with years of blood, sweat, and tears, so I can appreciate that Hootie does a nice Kenny Rogers, but his songs don't speak to my sensibilities and experience.