Sarah Palin, Brainiac

In what is the most surprising column about Sarah Palin ever since she first became John McCain’s running mate, Democrat Elaine Lafferty defends her, arguing that unlike what the elite media would like you to believe, Palin is actually a highly intelligent, curious and open-minded woman.

Writing about criticism aired by those who have never met Palin, but who deem themselves to fit to judge whether or not she is intelligent enough to be vice president nonetheless, Lafferty writes: “Those who know her, love her or hate her, offer no such criticism. They know what I know, and I learned it from spending just a little time traveling on the cramped campaign plane this week: Sarah Palin is very smart.”

“I’m a Democrat,” Lafferty goes on to write, “but I’ve worked as a consultant with the McCain campaign since shortly after Palin’s nomination. Last week, there was the thought that as a former editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine as well as a feminist activist in my pre-journalism days, I might be helpful in contributing to a speech that Palin had long wanted to give on women’s rights.”

So she worked with Palin on the speech, and was, therefore, able to speak to the Republican candidate for vice president for many hours. Her impression: “Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had. Palin is more than a “quick study”; I’d heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts.”

She has a mind that is “thoughtful, curious, with a discernible pattern of associative thinking and insight.” Furthermore, what is often called her ‘confidence,’ Lafferty goes on to explain, “is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.”

Lafferty’s column is surprising not because I thought Palin to be stupid, but because too many people buy into the ’she’s an idiot’ meme. Even Christopher Hitchens published a column for Slate recently, in which he bashes Palin for being anti-science and anti-knowledge. Lafferty dismisses that description as Palin, describing it as a view only those who don’t know Palin can hold.

Now, this does not mean that concerns about science and knowledge, and how they are treated by the Republican Party these days, are not based on reality. To a degree, they are. Especially on the activist base’s view of science and knowledge, and people like Rush Limbaugh.

But it seems increasingly likely that Palin is not one of them. That would result in quite a nuanced picture of this conservative woman who calls herself a feminist nonetheless, which is too difficult to accept for most members of the media, both old and new. But readers of this blog and reasonable bloggers and columnists should be able and willing to deal with this reality.