Tom Loftus, the ambassador to Norway during the Bill Clinton administration, wrote a column for us last month deploring the failure of the U.S. Senate to ratify President Obama's appointee for the job.

Pointing out that it's been vacant since September 2013, Loftus, who was a longtime legislator representing Sun Prairie and northern Dane County and ran for governor in 1990, stressed the strategic importance of Norway and its longtime friendship with the United States. Refusing to fill the vacancy is not only rude, but potentially dangerous, he said.

Wisconsin's Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson pointed out that it isn't his fault. It got voted out favorably from the committee Johnson sits on, but has languished on the floor of the Senate ever since.

It turns out that the culprit is none other than Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who wants to be president. He has placed a "hold" on all politically appointed ambassador nominees to protest the Obama administration's brokered deal to get Iran to stop trying to develop a nuclear bomb in return for the West's lifting of the sanctions against the country.