I shared an office with a guy who had Asperger's. He exhibited pretty much all of those characteristics - he never made eye contact, had a very hard time knowing when a conversation was over (I had to learn to get over thinking it was rude to literally say to him "Great, thanks for that, and our conversation is done."), and also had that all-absorbing interest in specific topics. Specifically the things he worked on, and the guy was like an encyclopedia. You didn't need Google to find out some esoteric thing about DNS servers, he just knew it.
But yeah, he also wasn't easily swayed or particularly susceptible to people telling him what to do. Brilliant and awkward is pretty much how I'd put it.
Also, I'd say we're far from relying on her. She spoke in front of the people who are still actually in positions of power. That's a long way from actually putting her in a position of power.