Ms. Cynthia Stroum, 60, a Seattle, Washington, business executive, was awarded this plum post to Luxembourg for raising over $500,000 for Obama's presidential campaign.

The American ambassadorship to Luxembourg has long been used as a post for rewarding political friends and benefactors of presidents. In the last 50 years, only three out of 21 US ambassadors to the tiny European country have been career diplomats.

Stroum's leadership style was deemed so "aggressive, bullying, hostile and intimidating" that her senior staff opted for positions in war zones — in order to escape her presence.

And, while she was berating her staff, she also was burning a hole in the embassy's budget to remodel her living quarters... specifically the bathrooms. State Department is said to have forked out $1.5 million for the renovations.

Oh yes, and while she was occupied with all this, she failed to do the job she was sent there to do.

According to a 61-page internal report by the department's inspector general's office, which covered her 14 months in the tiny kingdom, said:  "The ambassador's confrontational management style, chronic gaps in senior staffing caused by curtailments and an absence of a sense of direction have brought major elements of Embassy Luxembourg to a state of dysfunction."

How? Well, the report says Stroum told her staff, for example, that she had the right to snoop on their official e-mails, despite the fact that State Department policy restricts ambassadors' access to staff computer messages.

"Morale among Americans and local staff is very low, and stress levels are very high. Most employees describe the ambassador as aggressive, bullying, hostile and intimidating, which has resulted in an extremely difficult, unhappy and uncertain work environment."

In addition to her iron-fisted management style, Stroum failed to maintain the embassy's most important function:  Tracking any money-laundering and terrorist-financing activities in Luxembourg, a major global banking center, the report said.

Under her mismanagement, the embassy played "no significant role in policy advocacy or reporting, though developments in Luxembourg are certainly of interest to Washington and other US missions in the NATO and (European Union) communities," it added.

To say the ambassador was hard to please appears to be an understatement. While renovating the ambassador's residence, an embassy employee screened 200 houses and apartments to find her a temporary residence, which she is said to have rejected.

As ludicrous as it sounds, two diplomats from the US Embassy in Belgium were actually sent to Luxembourg to help assist with her lodging search.

Finally, taking a chapter right out of the "Princess and the Pea" fairy tale, Stroum purchased a queen-sized mattress shortly after her arrival to Luxembourg, complaining to staff about the condition of the existing bed at the ambassador's residence.

State Department dug in its heels and refused to reimburse her for the purchase. The report states that she then turned around and had the embassy repay her "in violation of department policy."

Catching wind of her self-induced scandal, Stroum resigned on Jan. 31, shortly before the inspector general's report began appearing on the Internet.

Perhaps now, her "most of the senior staff" which the report said had either cut short their tours in Luxembourg or asked for transfers to Iraq or Afghanistan — will ask to stay and/or return.

"While I will be returning to Seattle, I will always have great affection for Luxembourg as my second home," Stroum said, adding that her formal, detailed rebuttal was filed with the Office of the Inspector General, the same office which issued the scathing report.