It is worth noting that the person who wrote that knew her personally, and he wasn’t being entirely serious. Everyone who vaguely parrots the idea (as the fellow at Wired did) does so without the knowledge or the humor that informed it. A related example – A Modest Proposal isn’t really funny until you know who Jonathan Swift was actually jabbing with that poison pen.

“however, getting morons to understand truth and halt their disingenuous prancing was beyond her extraordinary ability.”

Beyond anyone’s ability, really. I don’t know who coined the phrase, but it’s certainly true in this case, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink,” and so it goes.