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Mrs Clinton said she had used a private email address for the sake of convenience, and had deleted some 31,830 emails which she deemed personal, an explanation which only served to further rile her critics.

The inquisition clearly infuriated Mrs Clinton: not just the impudence of those who dared question her integrity but also as she would see it the relentless, trivialising force of the modern media that always prefers froth to facts; nit-picking to policy.

But therein lies one of Mrs Clintons biggest problems if as everyone expects she announces a run for president in 2016.

More than ever, she seems incapable of hiding her hostility towards those who would challenge her. After years in the tank filled exclusively with presidents and prime-ministers, shes become the political equivalent of a puffer-fish: the slightest provocation elicits a prickly response.

Thats what undid her when questioned by Congress in 2012 over her handling of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that left a US ambassador dead on her watch - what difference does it make? she demanded.

And again during her book tour last year when questions were raised about her personal wealth and $250,000-a-pop speaking engagements You have no reason to remember, but we came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt, she said, to gales of laughter.

Though she tried to fight the impulse, she did it again this week at her press conference. She started trying to make nice, but when confronted with perfectly legitimate questions about why she deleted all those "personal" emails before anyone could review them, it was not long before the tone became defensive, scratchy.

As so often with Mrs Clinton, who has suffered as much criticism over the years as anyone could reasonably endure, the bristle reflex was partly understandable.

In using a personal email, she had done nothing that former secretaries Albright, Powell and Rice had not done before her, and no-one had accused them of cover-ups, she complained. So trust me, she asked, as you once trusted them.

But therein lies a second problem; clearly not enough people do trust Mrs Clinton; many are Republicans, but the doubters also include much of the so-called liberal media that Republicans accuse of giving Mr Obama a free pass these last six years.

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Hillary Clinton's prickly reaction to email row could be fatal to 2016 hopes