An MSNBC panelist said Tuesday that Hillary Clinton's positions had been "so fixed" during her 30 years in public life, in spite of the 2016 Democratic nominee flipping her positions on numerous issues.
Mike Barnicle quipped to "Morning Joe" guest Jen Palmieri—Clinton's 2016 campaign communications director—that the last thing people want to talk about is that campaign, but he called the first chapter of Palmieri's new book compelling since it was a tale of the "loser's locker room."
"How do you reposition or alter or improve a woman who has been on the national stage for 30 years and is so fixed not just in her positions but in her attitude, in her view of the country, and she's filled with enormous amounts of earned paranoia ... how would you do that?" Barnicle asked.
Palmieri said Clinton was "destined" to endure what she did because she was the first female presidential nominee for a major party. The idea was not to turn Clinton into a man but to show she had presidential qualities like being strong, capable, and stoic.
"Because she's a woman, we had to overcompensate, I think, for that ... Now we're in the territory of how do you change human behavior, that we're living with the manifestation of thousands of years of interactions with men and women?" she asked. "And I think the most important thing you can do is change what's in your own mind."
Contrary to Barnicle's framing of his question, Clinton has shifted or completely flip-flopped on numerous issues, including gay marriage, support for the Iraq War, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), relations with Russia, the Keystone XL Pipeline, and driver's licenses for illegal immigrants,
Time published an excerpt of Palmieri's book last week, in which she lamented that Clinton's concession speech to Donald Trump was praised because "that's what you think is acceptable for a woman to do—concede."