It would be ad hominem if I were trying to prove the claims of this article incorrect by critiquing him personally, but I clearly wasn't trying to disprove the

It would be ad hominem if I were trying to prove the claims of this article incorrect by critiquing him personally, but I clearly wasn't trying to disprove the claims of the article. Citing wikipedia: "Gratuitous verbal abuse or "name-calling" itself is not an ad hominem or a logical fallacy.[8][13][14][15][16] In order to become a fallacy, the insult would need to be given as a reason for believing some conclusion. An example would be, "X is idiotically ignorant [of politics], so why should we listen to him now?"" Also, "Is he wrong or uninteresting in this case?" is a false dilemma.