Some media handicappers have written off her prospects because of two much-ridiculed gaffes: saying that "the system worked" after the near-success of a suicide bomber's attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, and speaking earlier of terrorist attacks as "man-caused disasters."

But don't count the tough, no-nonsense Napolitano out; these lapses were out of character. Obama thinks highly of her, and "if the president is looking for someone who is not a Court of Appeals judge like all current members of the Court, she would be at the top of the list," thanks to her broad political experience, says a source familiar with the selection process and Obama's thinking.

Before taking over at Homeland Security, the 52-year-old Napolitano was a federal prosecutor, then Clinton's U.S. attorney in Arizona, and subsequently the elected attorney general and governor of Arizona. She worked effectively with, and often against, the Republican state Legislature, and she won re-election by a wide margin in 2006 by taking centrist, tough-on-crime positions and pushing programs for children that appealed to Republican women.

The retirement of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens will give President Obama another chance to fill the high court vacancy. National Journal columnist Stuart Taylor Jr. gives four candidates he thinks are on the SCOTUS shortlist. The other three:

Elena Kagan
Diane Wood
Merrick Garland