Three months after being abducted by religion-of-peace advocates, Jill Carroll has been released. According to the New York Times, the freelance reporter had “kind words for her captors and says she was treated well.” Treated better the Daniel Pearl, for sure. Fortunately for those of us on the abductee side of the civilizational divide, fashions change, even among terrorists. Indeed, if Ms. Carroll had been kidnapped even a year ago, she might not have been returned to us in one piece, much less with the presence of mind to appreciate how very fortunate she was.

Now, for better or worse, she and The Times have formed a bond with her captors that will color what we are told about her vigil in the weeks and months to come. Given the trauma that the woman has suffered, we shouldn’t judge her too harshly if she turns up on Katie Couric’s show dressed in a chador and urging us not to judge her would-be decapitators too harshly. Couric famously thrives on such interviews, and could probably turn Zacharias Moussouai into a sympathetic character in the space of a couple of commercial breaks. Did you know that Zack, as his childhood friends called him, could hit from both sides of the plate and once threw two no-hitters in a single season?.