I don't blame them for posting a dodgy preprint (that's what preprints are for) but I do blame them for going on a press blitz for their dodgy preprint. It's not a responsible way to use their platform.
The "standard" he set up was a straw man, and not how any practicing scientist I know actually looks at papers.
And when he allows his name to be used to push highly politci contrarian takes, all the weird attention his other papers received starts to make sense. It's not about the science, it's about being contrarian, at best, and at worst ways to subvert the public's view of science by deriving them on what it really means to publish a peer-reviewed paper.