[efaith]

"If I had a persistent gadfly like Stephen McIntyre..."

...or Socrates...

You do realize that "gadfly" is how Plato described his beloved teacher Socrates. "Gadfly" has a two thousand year old positive connotation. Is that the word you want to use? Though, granted, gadfly he is. And persistent, too, like Socrates.

"...who would use every opportunity to twist my data and words to his own political ends"

This, at any rate, is the view taken by those upon which McIntyre is a gadfly. It's completely understandable: the Athenians felt approximately the same way about Socrates, so strongly that in the end they executed Socrates. There are emails in which these guys express similar attitudes - at least one in which one of these guys wishes he could punch out the lights of one of the gadflies (not sure if it referred to McIntyre).

But as third parties, onlookers, we need not adopt the attitude of the Athenians/climate scientists toward their respective gadflies.