It's innuendo and guilt by association, mainly by his political opponents, both on the left and right, that are taking advantage of his inability to defend himself due to his stroke. I think many people are being _justly maligned_ by their association with Epstein, but in a way that distracts from the wider issue of what exactly does it mean when so many powerful and prominent people are found in compromising or potentially compromising situations and to what ends it served. It's US kompromat and the discussion is largely restricted to maligning people without discussing the significance of it.

In terms of Chomsky himself, given his career spanned both linguistics and politics, an honest critique would either deal with their disagreements with Chomsky like how Norvig did in this essay, or how Hitchens did over the Afghan and Iraq wars rather than saying "he had dinner with Epstein" or "he had dinner with Bannon".

In terms of the Epstein issue, the best criticism I can see is that his association with Epstein, Bannon etc. makes him a hypocrite although I don't find this personally convincing. Part of the problem for me here is that his present infirmities make it difficult for him to defend or explain himself and I find it poor form to kick the man when he's down, mainly by people who just didn't like that Chomsky didn't agree with them personally. Especially when he largely made a contribution to the debates even if one doesn't agree with him.

The article by Peter Norvig is still interesting.