Here’s an interesting piece on this somewhat, uh, painful topic from Gerard Baker of the London Times. Much of the article revolves around the way that Sarah Palin has become a focal point around which this debate rages. Baker reserves judgment on Gov. Palin herself, noting that:

It’s hard to make a reasoned and fair judgment about the Alaska Governor because she has been the victim of one of the nastiest, most sustained and comprehensive slime-jobs ever performed by a hyper-partisan national and global media.

True enough on a number of levels. Baker then adds this:

Palinphobia is so shot through with condescension and ideological incomprehension on the media’s part that trying to cut through to the reality of her political message is not easy.
Her performance on the campaign trail has been shaky, it’s true, though it has significantly improved of late (she is now talking directly to reporters more frequently than any of the other candidates). But in the absence of much hard experience of national politics it does seem as though she and her Republican handlers fell back on the Sarah Palin Story as a substitute for a political argument.
This has harmed her and distorted what she could bring to a Republican Party in renewal. There’s still a better story to be told about her record as politician in Alaska, where she has achieved more of substance than Barack Obama has in Washington.
As for the anti-intellectualism she seems to represent, this is a favourite old saw not only of the Left but also of the whole Establishment crowd. There’s an unshakeable view among the coastal elites that real wisdom is acquired only by circulating between the ivy-encrusted walls of scholarship and the Manhattan and Hollywood cocktail set.
But there’s real wisdom among those derided Americans who have never even ventured to the coasts, but whose steady consistent voice and values have been truly responsible for America’s many successes.

Food for thought.