FROM AUGUST 1995 to August 1997, John Philip Walker Lindh, the Marin County jihadist, was a frequent contributor to Internet newsgroups. As Newsweek reports in its latest issue, he used the nom de plume “doodoo.”

At the outset, he pretended to be a rapper, critiquing the rhymes of another Internet poseur as “some 13 year old white kid playing smart,” which would actually be a pretty fair description of himself, then a 14-year-old white kid trying to pass himself off as black. Two years later, he was “Prof. J” pontificating on the relationship of Judaism to Zionism in the newsgroup soc.religion.islam.