Whether Walker deserves to be tried for treason, to plead guilty to some lesser charge or to be given psychiatric treatment is a proper question for the U.S. justice system, not for the talk shows. As a U.S. citizen, he can presumably still count on a fair public trial, rather than face a secret military tribunal. Due process can and should determine his fate -- and if that fate is to be convicted as a traitor, so be it. Bearing arms against your countrymen is a grave matter, whatever the circumstances and the excuses.

But if we want to learn something from the events, plugging them into any kind of partisan matrix of good parent/bad parent -- whether it's "responsible conservative good, permissive liberal bad," or "open-minded liberal good, mean conservative bad" -- just won't do.

Sure, the Marin-style permissiveness that irks Steele deserves to be viewed with a degree of skepticism. Balancing freedom and rules is every parent's task, and in places like Marin, rules may not always get their due. An 18-year-old may well hear a parent's "Follow your bliss" as an indifferent "We don't care what you do." Failing to give a child any guidance at all is just as unfair as forcing a child to follow a preset path.

But not every conflict in a teenager's life is susceptible to easy Parenting 101 fixes. Adolescents work hard to script passionate dramas for their lives in which, finally, they and not their parents are the stars. Changing religions is -- like joining a cult or dropping out of school or starting a band -- an extremely popular plot twist.

Think back to your 18-year-old cohorts and you can probably remember one or more who share at least some of Walker's apparent traits. We all knew and know seekers of faith, kids who, as part of the adolescent identity game, try on religions for size. For many it's a phase; others latch onto some belief that their families find extreme and hold tight for the rest of their lives. For some it's a genuine quest for meaning fired by an honest repugnance at the material excesses of Malltown, USA. For others it's just a way to stick it to Mom and Dad.

Teenage rebellion is a fact of family life that knows no political allegiance or religious affiliation; when it's going to happen, it's going to happen, and the parent's stance, whatever it is, simply calls forth its opposite. The colonel's daughter becomes a pothead; the Nobelist's child flunks out; the Marin free thinker's son joins the repressive Taliban.

Now, most of us reading Walker's story are probably going to think, "Hey, if my kid asked to go to Yemen to study Arabic, no way I'd agree!" And while it's easy to second-guess another parent's decisions, in this case it sure feels right.

But we don't know John Walker. We don't know whether he sought "a value system of absolutes" because his parents failed to give him one, or because he knew that it was the opposite of what his parents had taught him. Maybe a stricter upbringing than Walker's parents provided might have kept him out of the Taliban; then again, maybe he'd have instead ended up as a runaway on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, bumming change.

Was Walker a true believer or an angry kid? Did he run away to Yemen out of love for the Quran or just to get away from his folks? We can't answer till we know more of his story. In the meantime, it's worth remembering what the New York Times reported, soon after Walker turned up in Mazar-e-Sharif: In the story, a Northern Alliance officer "indicated with a hand gesture that Mr. Walker was eccentric."

Perhaps he meant that Walker was nuts; perhaps he just meant to suggest the strangeness of the very presence of this lone American mujahedin. Either way, the Afghan's dismissive, rude "gesture" helps remind us that Walker is an individual, not a symbol. And in the end, his riddle will be answered by understanding his family and his psychology -- not by crudely applying culture-wars rhetoric to his case.

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