Once more - I am not defending GG et al. (I’m actually still doing my own research. I think there’s some legitimacy, but he and his have buried the gold in a mountain of crap. OTOH I’m not sure enough that there’s gold in that mountain to defend it yet.)

My objection is to a particular argument used to dismiss his mountain of crap.

Specifically, China/Russia/France/Israel/Iran does it too, and worse.

Bad argument. “Hey look over there.”

As I said it gets used enough that my instinct is to wonder if it’s the argument of someone who’s run out of legitimate points or if it’s one of those pushing misdirection.

And again, one of my reasons is that there is some indication gold in the mountain. Such as a senator reporting intel is prying into oversight records. It may yet turn out to be fool’s gold - I do not know enough yet to say. But it’s the reason I’m suspicious of bad arguments.