Writing in the Boston Globe, Cathy Young sums up my feeling regarding that vulgar display of mushmouthedness engaged in recently by the parents of Johnny bin Walker (at the press conference announcing their son’s plea bargain):

That Walker and Lindh still love their son is understandable. No one is asking them to disown him or curse him. But they could have expressed some grief, regret, and shame over their son’s acts (or simply remained silent). Perhaps some contrition would have won more sympathy not only for them but for their son as well.

They could have tried to convince the public that John Lindh was not an evildoer but a messed-up young man who made some terrible choices. Instead, they have tried to depict him as an idealist with a heart of gold and admirable devotion to his principles.

A few conservatives have tried to use John Lindh to indict liberal parenting or the progressive counterculture. That’s absurd and unfair; how many other products of overly liberal parenting have ended up fighting for extremist regimes overseas? However, Frank Lindh’s public stance does suggest a caricature of nonjudgmental liberal open-mindedness — so open-minded that one’s brains fall out.

Johnboy’s parents (and his ever-vocal attorney) have insisted that Walker — though perhaps, y’know, a smidge misguided — is nevertheless a “truly devout Muslim.”

That a truly devout Muslim is the kind of person (by this description) who would take up arms for one of the most repressive regimes ever to hold power — and we’re talking about in the history of the world, here — is of course an irony lost on most of the Taliboy’s remaining supporters. For them, it’s enough that he was “devout.”

You know. Like many of the Nazis were “devout.”

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