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> In contrast, there is no ad hominem fallacy if someone says: "Don't believe my opponent — he has an ulterior motive, and I think he has conflicts of interest

• gnicholas 9y ago
  Actually, it engages the substance of his argument, which he lays out in the first sentence: > My comment is entirely focused on the hypocrisy of the _current_ media... He explicitly disclaims that he is not defending the VCs' behavior — he is just saying that perhaps the media behavior is not great as well. Having limited his claim to the behavior of the media, it is not logically inappropriate (i.e., not a logical fallacy) to talk about the media's motives and conflicts of interest. I can understand why this might seem, at a glance, like ad hominem, because it bears some similarities to the logically fallacy. In the law, this distinction is described and handled by the evidentiary rules related to impugning a witness' character. Such character attacks are generally irrelevant and not allowed — but if they relate to the trustworthiness of the witness in general, or as it relates to their specific testimony, then they are relevant and allowable.