Enjoyed your comment, and want to highlight an observation I had in law school which might explain how people like her rise to the top.

She grew up privileged, but likely with immense pressure to excel. She became a due diligence machine - great grades throughout, prepared, and confident. Van Jones has even complimented her preparedness. She is ambitious, and will sell out to capitalize on opportunities. In 2016, she began publicly backing Trump, knowing that it was the most likely route to punditry. She had previously criticized him as racist.

In terms of whether she is smart: she probably had a stellar GPA in undergrad - Georgetown already averages a high GPA, and she held some prestigious internships. If she attended Miami U for law school, her LSAT - a better indicator of abstract thinking skills and pattern recognition - was likely poor.

I attended a top law school. I don’t think intelligence correlates much with law school success. I would speculate that traits like (1) [obsessive, unhealthy] preparedness, (2) complete “buy in”, (3) ability to learn minutia without understanding whole processes, (4) strong public speaking, and (5) tight, structured, and detail oriented writing skills are far more indicative of success.

The curve is steep in law school, and she probably blew smarter people out of the water with due diligence, confident public speaking, and technically sound writing honed by private school and Ivy League. Hence, she could transfer successfully to Harvard law.

She fits a common profile. I know a bunch of Ivy League lawyers who are the result of single-minded “achieve at all costs” focus forced on them from an early age by wealthy parents - with prestigious career/academic gold stars, a bevy of tutors, and a healthy reliance on adderall and material consumption to get by.

It’s no surprise that she’s a conservative hard liner. It’s more gratifying to view yourself out of context, and she can look back at her hard work as evidence that she’s self made.