Suddenly, the mood is looking up. Manchin’s surprise decision to back $370 billion in tax credits to stimulate clean-energy technologies and other progressive environmental priorities came after many Democrats had concluded hope was pointless. Assuming the deal survives further legislative maneuvering in coming days — not a forgone conclusion — it invites a reappraisal of Biden’s leadership. Maybe that isn’t hopeless, either?

Following a pattern with long roots in his career, Biden is looking a little like the student who is failing his class for most of the semester, then pulls an all-nighter and slips the paper under the professor’s door at 6 a.m. It turns out the paper is actually pretty good. There’s no way he’s getting an A for the term, but no fair grader would give him an F, either. A solid B is within reach.

The pending breakthrough on climate legislation likely puts Biden’s approach to the presidency in the best possible light. Importantly, even that best light still reveals large gaps between the demands of the moment and his ability to meet those demands — or to use the tools of the modern presidency in a way that the most successful leaders have done. Biden’s presidency has more life, and more possibility, than it looked like 48 hours ago. But it is still fundamentally defined by his limits — most of all by his weak rhetorical skills and his inability to tell a compelling story about where he would take the country.