Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who lost out in a bruising bid for the job of secretary of state, may end up having the last laugh.

Rice has emerged as far and away the front-runner to succeed Tom Donilon as President Barack Obama's national security adviser later this year, according to an administration official familiar with the president's thinking. The job would place her at the nexus of foreign policy decision-making and allow her to rival the influence of Secretary of State John Kerry in shaping the administration's foreign policy.

The appointment would mark a dramatic twist of fortune for Rice, whose prospects of becoming the country's top diplomat fizzled last year following a round of television appearances in which she provided what turned out to be a flawed account of a Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.