Much ink has been spilled about MySpace, and how it is replete with sexual predators.  While that is a problem, the oft-cited statistic that one-in-five teens are subjected to "sexual solicitation" on MySpace is a lot of hype.

On the other hand, this is pretty weird:

A 16-year-old honor student from Michigan tricked her parents into getting her a passport and then flew off to the Mideast to be with a West Bank man she met on MySpace.com, authorities say.

U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded her to turn around and go home before she reached the West Bank. She was on her way home Friday.

Katherine R. Lester is a straight-A student and student council member, her father said. "She’s a good girl. Never had a problem with her," Terry Lester said.

MySpace.com is a social networking Web site with more 72 million members that lets users post photos, blogs and journals. There have been scattered accounts of sexual predators targeting minors they met through the site.

Katherine disappeared Monday after talking her family into getting her a passport by saying she was going to Canada with friends, sheriff’s officials said. She apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho, Undersheriff James Jashinske said.

That’s pretty ookey.

And she insists that it’s love. 

"I’m definitely going to marry him," the Gilford teen told Good Morning America co-anchor Kate Snow, adding: "I don’t plan on going over there. I plan on him coming here."

The 25 year old man insists it’s love, too:

"When I realized she wasn’t coming, I felt my whole world collapse," he said. "My tears didn’t stop and I couldn’t sleep for three days."

Boo-hoo.

Now comes the freaky part:

Like the rest of the world, Lester’s father assumed she had been duped by some sex-starved freak. He was ready to lock her in the basement for a few years. Now he can see it’s the real thing.

The real thing????  She’s sixteen, you moron!!

Blame MySpace?  No way.  Blame bad parenting.