Earlier this week, she quit the gig that Obama selected especially for her, just days before a scathing internal State Department report was released concerning her so-called "performance" on the cushy job of being Obama's ambassador to the quaint little European nation of Luxembourg.Her name is Cynthia Stroum, and she was a significant and official pal, fundraiser and contributor to Obama long before the State Department ever blasted her embassy management skills as "abysmal" and a "disaster" (link to full story at bottom).
The report from the State Department's inspector general paints the picture of a nightmare of an ambassador -- a regular dragonlady, you might say -- who spent her tenure in Luxembourg verbally abusing underlings, worrying mostly about the perks of the job, and spending inordinate amounts of taxpayer money on booze. More on all of that later. But first:
The Rise
You might ask, how could such a person ever ascend to an ambassadorship in the first place? Well, as the linked AP story puts it, "Stroum's major qualification for the post appeared to be her generous contributions to Democratic politicians and causes, particularly Obama's campaign."
This included "Stroum donating the maximum personal amount to Obama's campaign" and being "responsible for ginning up at least $500,000 for Obama, putting her near the top of the campaign's money generators."
I think they have a phrase for this in the American mafia: "If you earn, you rise." And rise she did. Though she had no prior diplomatic experience, Obama in 2009 named Stroum ambassador to Luxembourg – "a tiny nation of 500,000 people about the size of Rhode Island and surrounded by France, Belgium and Germany" (final picture above). Put another way: A dream gig.
The Lout
The State Department's report found that Stroum's "tenure was fraught with personality conflicts" and "verbal abuse," among other things. It charges Stroum with being responsible for a "corrosive atmosphere" involving "the ambassador running roughshod over staff [and] threatening to read their e-mails."
The State Department also found that most of the embassy's internal problems were linked directly to Stroum's "leadership deficiencies, the most damaging of which is an abusive management style." She would publicly criticize her colleagues and staffers, and those who dared to ever question any of Stroum's behavior "paid a heavy price in the form of verbal abuse and [being] threatened with dismissal."
Things got so bad that "the inspector general recommended that the State Department dispatch medical personnel to Luxembourg to test the stress levels of embassy employees." Incredibly, "at least four staffers quit or sought transfers to Iraq and Afghanistan"! How bad must it have been to work under this "lady" if staffers felt compelled to seek transfers to dangerous hellholes such as Afghanistan and Iraq? Good grief.
The Booze
The State Department's report also detailed various "questionable expenditures" by ambassador Stroum on such things as "travel, wine and liquor." For example, the report revealed that her embassy "purchased $3,400 in wine and liquor a day before the 2010 budget year ended in an effort to spend as much of its annual entertainment funds as possible."
In other words, there were thousands and thousands of dollars in the embassy’s annual "entertainment" budget, and Stroum was determined to spend every single penny of that budget, damn it – even if it meant making arbitrary and unnecessary booze purchases simply for the sake of spending the entire budget. That's just sick. Deplorable. Disgraceful. Deranged.
The Perks
Stroum, a highly wealthy Seattle blueblood, really loved her perks of the job as well! In fact, they were her main focus. The report finds that Stroum was "largely concerned about job-related perks" – an emphasis that reared its ugly head almost from day one: Shortly after she arrived in Luxembourg in 2009, Stroum made a point to discuss with the embassy's staffers "the importance she attaches to the perquisites of being an ambassador."
As an example, the report finds that Stroum was "particularly concerned about the state of the ambassador's residence, which was being renovated." During the renovation, Stroum needed temporary housing. A simple matter, right? WRONG!
Stroum had an embassy official spend "six weeks searching for an appropriate property and, using contacts in Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany and France along with two offices from the U.S. Embassy in Brussels, screened 200 properties and visited 30 to 40”!
But alas, all of this manpower and manhours only resulted in the embassy finding four properties "that met the ambassador's requirements." And a big surprise here: When staffers ran the four properties by Stroum, she rejected every single one of them! Somehow, eventually, an "appropriate residence" was found for Stroum, the report says. Against all odds, apparently.
I'm sure that to Stroum, the "appropriate residence" needed to be one "fit for a queen," as that's very clearly how this out-of-touch aristocrat viewed herself. To wit: Her Highness even applied her regal self-image to her royal bedroom furniture, obtaining reimbursement "for the purchase of a new bed because she preferred a queen bed" (what else?) to the bed already provided. (The report says that this nonsensical "queen bed" reimbursement needs to be repaid by Stroum, BTW.)
The Fall
Finally, while it's obvious that Her Majesty quit the ambassadorship because the State Department's blistering report was about to be publicly released, Stroum admits no fault and actually claimed to the Luxembourg press that "she was leaving the job because she wanted to return to private life" and "focus on my family and personal business."
Even the State Department joined in on that line of bull$hit, stating: "We are grateful for her service to the United States and wish her all the best in her new endeavors."
Meantime, Stroum has run for the hills just as fast as her blueblooded hooves would allow. She's not returning calls from the media, and she's having others say that she's "unavailable" in response to any and all media inquiries.
Of course, it says very little for Obama's better judgment that he would select such a bad-mouthing, booze-ordering beast of a verbal bully like Stroum to serve in an ambassadorship in the first place. The buck stops at the top, and I hold him just as accountable for this complete embarrassment as that narcissistic, primpin' prima donna herself.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5icvkPhBDrb3c8ySkXkQURKNJ9sSw?docId=306882dbed82458e8897d5afef59d730
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