Susan Rice Honored With 'Great American' Award Night Before Benghazi Hearing
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice was honored Tuesday night with the 2013 Louis E. Martin Great American Award.
The annual award, presented by The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, is given to “an exemplar of change, progress and willingness to take one for the team if circumstances require. (I may have made that last part up.)
Specifically, the organization is honoring Rice for ”her work in advancing U.S. interests, strengthening the world’s common security and prosperity, and promoting respect for human rights,” another press release states.
The evening gala and awards ceremony, which included Vice President Joe Biden, came the day before State Department whistleblowers testified at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the terrorist attack that took place at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi last year.
"What happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, which were prompted, of course, by the video,” Rice erroneously stated on NBC’s Meet the Press--one of the five Sunday talk shows she appeared on five days after the attack.
Gregory Hicks, the highest ranking American diplomat in Libya after the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans last year, testified before Congress on Wednesday that he was “embarrassed” by Rice's claims.
Here is the exchange between South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy and Hicks about Susan Rice’s comments:
Gowdy: Fast forward, Mr. Hicks, to the Sunday talk shows with Ambassador Susan Rice. She blamed this attack on a video. In fact, she did it five different times. What is your reaction to that?Hicks: I was stunned. My jaw dropped. And I was embarrassed.Gowdy: Did she talk to you before she went on the five Sunday talk shows?Hicks: No, sir.Gowdy: You were the highest ranking official in Libya at the time, correct?Hicks: Yes.Gowdy: And she did not bother to have a conversation with you before she went on national television?
Hicks: No, sir.
So what did Joey Choo Choo say about Susan Rice at the gala, one day before Hicks said he was stunned and embarrassed by her bogus anti-Islamic YouTube video story?
Rice has “the absolute, total, complete confidence of the president,” Biden said at a gala for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, according to press reports. “When she speaks… no one wonders whether or not she is speaking for the president.” [emphasis added]
Wow.
Speaking of the president....where was he in all of this, anyway?
BEVERLY HILLS (CBSLA.com) — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived at a Beverly Hills gala to much fanfare on Wednesday as she prepared to accept an award for her public service.
Local volunteers from a national organization called “Ready for Hillary 2016″ were organized outside the Beverly Wilshire hotel, where the Pacific Council on International Policy would be honoring the secretary.
The Council awarded Clinton with the inaugural Warren Christopher Public Service Award, named after the former secretary of state who served under her husband, former President Bill Clinton, from 1993 to 1996.
A lawyer and decorated diplomat, Christopher died in 2011 at the age of 85, having also served as deputy secretary of state during the Carter administration.
He had also been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 1981 for his role in negotiating the release of 52 American hostages held in Iran.
The award in his name honors “the public service of others whose work reflects his distinctive leadership qualities,” according to the Pacific Council, which considers itself “the premier international affairs organization focused on policy issues of special resonance to the West Coast”, according to its website.
The gala happened the same day members of Congress are investigating a deadly attack on an embassy in Libya. Dramatic testimony about the Benghazi massacre last September, including criticism of how it was handled by Clinton and the Obama administration, was underway in Washington, D.C.
Clinton made no mention of that in Beverly Hills, and thanked Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa while taking the stage.
In her remarks she addressed, among other things, the crackdown on international cyber threats.
“The majority of cyber threats that are attacking military and civilian governmental assets as well as our private sector assets is originating from China,” Clinton said.
Clinton stepped down as secretary of state in February after four years of service under the Obama administration, making way for John Kerry.
It marks her first time as a private citizen in 20 years following her service as first lady, senator and a failed bid to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 which led to her appointment as secretary of state.
She has yet to state definitively whether she plans to run for president in 2016.
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