Doris Helen Kearns Goodwin (born January 4, 1943)[1] is an American biographer, historian, former sports journalist, and political commentator.

Goodwin's book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995.

In 1968, she earned a PhD in government from Harvard University, with a thesis titled "Prayer and Reapportionment: An Analysis of the Relationship between the Congress and the Court.

[17] Johnson initially expressed interest in hiring the young intern as his Oval Office assistant, but after an article by Kearns appeared in The New Republic laying out a scenario for Johnson's removal from office over his conduct of the war in Vietnam, she was, instead, assigned to the Department of Labor; Goodwin has written that she felt relieved to be able to remain in the internship program in any capacity at all.

"The president discovered that I had been actively involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement and had written an article entitled, 'How to Dump Lyndon Johnson.’ I thought, for sure, he would kick me out of the program, but instead, he said, 'Oh, bring her down here for a year, and if I can't win her over, no one can'.

"[18] After Johnson decided not to run for reelection, he brought Kearns to the White House as a member of his staff, where she focused on domestic anti-poverty efforts.

Her first book, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, a biography which drew upon her conversations with the late president, was published in 1977, becoming a New York Times bestseller and provided a launching pad for her literary career.

[22] Goodwin won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for History for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front During World War II (1994).

Goodwin is a frequent guest commentator on Meet the Press, having appeared many times during the tenures of hosts Tim Russert, Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, and Chuck Todd.

In an article she wrote for Time magazine, she said, "Though my footnotes repeatedly cited Ms. McTaggart's work, I failed to provide quotation marks for phrases that I had taken verbatim...

[47] The plagiarism controversy caused Goodwin to resign from the Pulitzer Prize Board[48] and to relinquish her position as a regular guest on the PBS NewsHour program.

Goodwin stopped following baseball after the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, but later became a Boston Red Sox fan while attending Harvard, and is now a season ticket holder.