‘A Remarkable Public Servant’

Janet Napolitano was the U.S. attorney from Arizona when I first started working with her while serving as the U.S. White House drug-policy director. I spent one long day with her in 1996 inspecting U.S. border operations along the frontier with Mexico. She struck me then, and she has ever since, as a remarkable public servant. She is extraordinarily intelligent, extremely family-oriented, and compassionate, and with none of the posturing that we frequently see in political officials.

I have continued to have periodic contact with her over the years. She was a very tough and sensible Arizona state attorney general. She was a pragmatic and fiscally responsible governor with two successful elections as a Democrat in a largely Republican state. She now serves responsibly as the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (the third-largest department in the federal government), in charge of much of the nation’s domestic-security efforts. As a young woman, she had a brilliant academic record as an undergraduate at Santa Clara University (Truman scholar and valedictorian), and as a University of Virginia law-school graduate.

Janet Napolitano has faced down breast cancer and Mexican drug criminals. She cares about families and the vulnerable. She is young (53 years old) and has an inner core of integrity. She listens to people carefully.

Janet Napolitano would bring a balanced and experienced perspective to the U.S. Supreme Court.

McCaffrey currently serves as an adjunct professor of international affairs at West Point. He is a national-security commentator for NBC News. He previously served as director, U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, from 1996 to 2001. He served four combat tours and was wounded in action three times.