With a couple of exceptions, Biden has been a damn good president thus far in his term. The American Rescue Plan saved millions of jobs and businesses, shored up state budgets, and funded testing, treatment, and vaccines to fight the pandemic. The Inflation Reduction Act is the largest climate bill in world history and also allows Medicare to finally negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs. The bipartisan Infrastructure bill that the last four presidents had failed to pass fixes the nations roads, bridges, ports, grid and expands high speed internet to rural America. Other bipartisan bills include the gun-safety bill that expands background checks, makes it easier to prosecute illegal gun trafficking, and provides federal funding for so-called red-flag laws. The CHIPS Act boosts domestic production of semiconductors. The long-stalled postal-reform bill. The Violence Against Women Act. Military aid for Ukraine. Executive actions on student-loan forgiveness and pardons for marijuana possession. His only real screw up was Afghanistan, and that was in the disorderly pullout. The policy itself has been good in ending America’s longest war. Terrorism hasn’t spiked as a result and our hands have been freed to more directly help Ukraine.

That’s why I am so deeply disappointed about this documents issue. It was sloppy. It will likely result in Trump getting off the hook despite his far more egregious classified documents scandal. There is a real concern about the timing given the first documents where found six days before the midterms but publicly announced much later. And of course it has a similarity to Hillary’s emails with classified materials, which dogged her entire campaign in 2016. This really could be Biden’s undoing, especially if Trump isn’t the 2024 GOP nominee. That frees the GOP to batter Biden relentlessly over this.

Maybe I’m jumping the gun, but as much as I like Biden it might be time for another Democrat to step up and take the helm. If so I favor Gavin Newsome.