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?