[BostonCard]

Seems to me that there was a lot of attacking Ms. Gu's character and motives rather than answering her argument for competing for her mom's home country, China. 

Fair enough.

FWIW, I wasn’t trying to comment on the propriety of attacking Gu (and I admit to being one of the people critical of her, though hopefully not in personally offensive terms); I was just noting that many people use”ad hominem” instead of “personal”, and that is a pet peeve. That being said, you make a good argument for why the attacks could be interpreted as ad hominem and in any case, the distinction is so often lost that I might as well get over myself and accept that in common usage, ad hominem is synonymous for a personal attack, regardless of whether or not it is part of a logical fallacy.

BC

[BostonCard]

Seems to me that there was a lot of attacking Ms. Gu's character and motives rather than answering her argument for competing for her mom's home country, China. 

Fair enough.

FWIW, I wasn’t trying to comment on the propriety of attacking Gu (and I admit to being one of the people critical of her, though hopefully not in personally offensive terms); I was just noting that many people use”ad hominem” instead of “personal”, and that is a pet peeve. That being said, you make a good argument for why the attacks could be interpreted as ad hominem and in any case, the distinction is so often lost that I might as well get over myself and accept that in common usage, ad hominem is synonymous for a personal attack, regardless of whether or not it is part of a logical fallacy.

BC