The thing which makes it hard to stick up for the Talmud is Talmudic scholars that are demons. תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים The Talmud itself deals with this problem and it in fact even comes up in the Mishna. But after that it is largely forgotten. I imagine because it was not much of a problem during the Middle Ages. During the Middle Ages  to get to be called a Talmudic scholar was so difficult that the process automatically weeded out the bad apples [sorry for the mixed metaphor.]


The best way around this problem is thus to go to any one of the basic set of straight Lithuanian  yeshivas--the three in Brooklyn, NY. (Mirrer, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat), or the ones in Israel Ponovitch, Brisk {and many others in Israel built along the same lines, e.g., Tifrach, Silverman's Yeshivat HaGra in the Old City, etc.}


One reason why it is important to avoid the Dark Side teachers of Torah is because they teach Torah  from the Dark Side.
In summary:  avoid Talmudic scholars that are demons and also the Torah of the Sitra Achra [Dark Side].

Power, money, politics should  to be considered as meaningless. And the more people get into his teachings the more these things lose their significance.

So what to take out of all this is that there is nothing wrong with loving heroes. Everyone love heroes and Jewish people are no different in this regard. The point is to choose your heroes wisely.