Doris Kearns Goodwin poses for a portrait outside at her home.
William Howard Taft - the 27th president of the United States - has always been warmly regarded here in his hometown, where his Mount Auburn birthplace is a national historic site and a prominent road bears his name.
But nationally, the Republican - who served in the Oval Office from March 4, 1909 to March 4, 1913 - doesn't fare so well. C-SPAN's survey of historians about presidential leadership in 2009 ranked him 24th.
But in the course of researching and writing her new "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism," Pulitzer Prize-winning ...