The latest Bee headline suggests Napolitano may have the upper hand in initial skirmishes. But the former Arizona governor is doomed.

Napolitano doesn’t understand how California politics works. She doesn’t remotely get that the UC president’s office isn’t a political power center. Her job is more for people with a courtier streak than a my-way-or-the-highway streak.

Beyond that, Napolitano is a Golden State newcomer who after 14 months doesn’t have remotely enough political capital to take on a California institution just re-elected in a landslide. She also has no idea how toxic tuition hikes are to the state’s dominant Democrats.

But what is perhaps most tone-deaf of all is that Napolitano has launched this fight even as she defies a new state law that requires UC to be way more transparent about its finances so when it imposes tuition hikes, elected leaders understand why they are impossible to avoid.

I wrote about this angle in Tuesday’s U-T San Diego:

It’s hard to believe any government agency in a democracy would think it had no obligation to disclose essential details about its finances. Yet that has long been the norm with the University of California system and its multibillion-dollar annual budget.

This was supposed to change with enactment of a 2013 state law that requires UC to break down how — and for what — it uses state funding, tuition, research grants and other incoming dollars. This was done to force UC to offer a clear financial case when considering tuition hikes and enrollment changes. Presently, UC officials offer a vague “average cost of instruction” per student instead of a detailed analysis.

Beginning Oct. 1, university officials were supposed to provide such data. Not only has UC refused to comply, it has done so even as UC President Janet Napolitano proposed annual tuition hikes for the next five years.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Napolitano insisted UC wasn’t being “defiant.” But she also belittled the law as an inconvenient “budget exercise.”

This is inexcusable. Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature need to send Napolitano a clear, strong message that UC must comply with a plainly written — and badly needed — state law.

How long until Napolitano gives up on her tuition-hike push and launches a laughable attempt at face-saving? I’d say the over-under is Dec. 24. She’ll announce her new stance on Christmas Eve at 5 p.m. to hope it minimizes her embarrassment at being massively schooled by Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

First came her response after Eric Holder announced he was leaving as attorney general. Instead of immediately saying she was not interested because she had just started her job at UC, she pointedly did not rule herself out in speculation about whom President Obama would pick to replace Holder. Her spokesman said she was “fully engaged” in her job running UC, which is not the same as saying “not interested, move along.”

Now the Washington Post reports that Napolitano is wading into the never-ending inside-the-Beltway fights over immigration policy:

Former homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano is supporting executive action by President Obama to change immigration policy if Congress fails to pass a broad overhaul, citing what she calls her successful 2012 push to delay deportations of many younger immigrants.

“If Congress refuses to act and perform its duties, then I think it’s appropriate for the executive to step in and use his authorities based on law . . . to take action in the immigration arena,’’ Napolitano, a lawyer and former U.S. attorney in Arizona, said in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post.

Napolitano is of course free to do whatever she wants to do with her life. There are some of us who never thought she was right for the UC presidency in the first place.

However, I have to wonder how many regents are wincing at the fact that the woman they gave one of the iconic jobs in American academia to just a year and a half ago already is positioning herself for a return to national politics.