The recent New York Times article that stated the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was not the work of al-Qaida flies in the face of intelligence experts, survivors and witnesses’ accounts of the event.

Most people understand al-Qaida is a loosely knit network of Muslim extremists Hell-bent on destroying Western civilization, and not a single, uniformed group of insurgents with a solid chain of command. To accept the Times account is to believe a flash mob of locals just happened to show up with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at the consulate on Sept. 11, 2012.

I believe the real reason the Times published this story is to start the cover-up for — and lay the media groundwork for — their coronation of Hillary Clinton as our next president.

As you may remember, Clinton was secretary of state at the time and was responsible for this debacle. Who can forget her callous comment: “What difference does it make?” in front of a congressional investigative committee looking into the event? The responsibility of the event and lack of any sort of rescue attempt belongs to her.

Of course this doesn’t look good on Clinton’s resume, so the Times has decided to whitewash the event. It’s an old political tactic, mastered by her husband, to air your dirty laundry as early as possible in the political campaign so that it can be forgotten or explained as “old news.” Remember the Jennifer Flowers rape allegations cover-up by “Sixty Minutes” early in his campaign? I’m sure subsequent media pieces will address and try to bury her many other foibles, such as Whitewater, Vince Foster’s “suicide” and cover-up, cattle-futures, insider trading, and election fraud, to name a few.

To analytically examine Hillary Clinton is to see a megalomaniac control-freak who is long on ambition and short on performance.

She has gotten as far as she has by riding on her husband’s soiled coattails. Her plans for changing America are the same as Obama’s, just on steroids.

The same big-government leftist progressives who voted for Obama both times will fall in line to support and elect Hillary. The “free lunch” crowd couldn’t care less about corruption as long as they continue to get freebies paid for by tax-paying citizens.