Peter: I haven’t read either of those books, and have no interest in the subject matter. However, I resist the idea that Osama bin Laden’s having endorsed them tells us anything about the quality of the arguments they present. Karl Marx admired Dickens; that tells us something about Marx, but nothing about Dickens. Hitler was a vegetarian, but no one thinks any the worse of vegetarians on that account. An author isn’t responsible for the people who like his books. Al Gore is a big fan of Stendahl; but I don’t hold that against Stendahl.