MSNBC: Hillary's Secret E-mails Were 'Defensive' Reaction to Ken Starr

[See NewsBusters for more.] Atlantic magazine editor Steve Clemons spun Hillary Clinton's use of a private, unsecured e-mail server as the natural, "defensive" reaction to being "under political assault" by people like Ken Starr. The MSNBC contributor exonerated, "We don't know exactly what the rational is, but there was a certain defensiveness that makes a lot of sense when you look back at how under assault the Clintons have been."  Clemons allowed, "This is a family, you know, a franchise, if you will, under political assault for a very long time." The journalist insisted that in the wake of the Clintons's battle with Ken Starr, with Whitewater and the "constant conspiratorial atmosphere around them," using a separate e-mail server "was an act of defensiveness to try and protect some bit of their terrain from enemies that I think they feel are embedded all around them."