The "two weeks late" presidency

Another example: During the omicron wave of COVID, the administration was pressed on the distribution of more at-home rapid tests. In an infamous exchange for which she’s been kicking herself ever since, White House press secretary Jen Psaki snapped, sarcastically, at a reporter: “Should we just send one to every American?” Precisely two weeks later, the administration announced a program to do just that.

Finally, there’s the issue of the Senate filibuster. Biden has not said he’d support eliminating it entirely—not that he gets a vote on it, anyway. But every time a new, pressing issue is stymied by the 60-vote rule, he’s coaxed into supporting a new exception, months after most Democratic members of the Senate have. He did so in the final push for voting rights legislation over the winter, as civil rights groups were imploring him to show a little urgency. He did so on abortion rights a week after the Dobbs decision.

Being the president of the United States is hard—the second-hardest job in the world, probably, behind leading the Democratic Party coalition. Biden has both of these jobs, and not every decision is going to be perfectly timed.

But his characteristic lateness to the party, and his seeming absence from the great debates of the day—until the public clamor grows loud enough to drag him out to a microphone—is not something he’s incapable of overcoming. When he has a goal he truly cares about, he is able to be proactive rather than reactive.