Doris Kearns Goodwin's first dance with presidential history may not have been graceful, but it certainly remains in the author's annals as one of the most coincidentally sure-footed maneuvers of her career.

It wasn't fancy footwork that tripped up the then-Harvard University graduate student, Goodwin told a crowd of more than 1,200 in UB's Center for the Arts Mainstage Theatre on April 26. It was what she wrote about President Lyndon B. Johnson, with whom she shared a dance on the night of a reception honoring 16 newly selected White House interns. One of three women interns selected, Goodwin doubted she would hold her post much beyond the next day-when Harvard's New Republic published her piece slamming the chief, "How to Dump Lyndon Johnson."

	Goodwin

The last speaker in the 2000-01 Distinguished Speakers Series, Goodwin said that as a 24-year-old White House intern working with "LBJ," "our relationship had a less promising start"-alluding to a more recent parallel in time. But Johnson didn't get rid of Goodwin. Instead, he appealed to her challenge with one of his own.

"He said,...'If I can't win her over, no one can,'" recalled Goodwin, who served as his assistant during his last year in the White House and spent the last four years of his life with Johnson-the man whom she said kindled her fascination of the presidency-writing his memoir.

The political commentator and best-selling biographer who won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for her biography of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, "No Ordinary Time," said her roots in history stem from her childhood love of baseball-captured in her own memoir, "Wait Till Next Year"-and storytelling. She credits her father for insisting that as a young Brooklyn Dodgers fan, she recount the game from beginning to middle to end. And her mother, ailing most of her adult life from heart damage suffered from rheumatic fever, was an inspiring storyteller.

Goodwin's curiosity for stories has carried over into her work on the Kennedy clan-"The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys"-as well as her most recent work on President Abraham Lincoln. Working for two decades with various "presidential characters" has given Goodwin a platform of her own from which to contribute her own political pocket change.

"LBJ," who understood well the legislative process, and the respect of give and take within Congress, used it to his advantage, she said.

"He used the moral authority of his presidency to advance social justice in a wide array of ways," said Goodwin, noting that he put his own presidency on the line with his push for civil-rights legislation-a major risk that paid off in his first 100 days in office.

"One of the big questions the president has to think about in these first 100 days-do they go forward with something strong, risky, courageous that may lose, or do they just simply move along more incrementally, not taking that risk?" she asked.

Roosevelt, whom she spent six years studying, was remarkable in his first 100 days, Goodwin pointed out, not just for his accomplishments in policy, but because he inspired hope and a renewed sense of American spirit.

Despite a time of adversity and uncertainty, Roosevelt possessed confidence "that he could shape, could mold and educate public opinion-not simply reflect it," said Goodwin, pointing out an ill symptom of today's presidency.

As for her illuminations on Bush's first 100 days in office, Goodwin says something still remains elusive in his leadership-his ability to engage the public to the point where "they know and feel he is their president."

Goodwin likened Bush to a general fighting his last war in that he's working against the former Clinton presidency, rather than creating his own sense of "majesty and theater."

"Bush is much more reserved," she said, noting that the previous White House drama has all but faded to black. "He's presumably sleeping with his wife at night," she added, flashing her signature smile. "He goes to bed at 10 p.m. with the same woman."