At the start of “Fargo,” a title card announces the movie is based on a true story. It isn’t. The card was a ploy so the writers could get away with telling the most outlandish story possible, and it worked. Viewers bought every bit of the movie, right down to the body in the wood chipper. 

I dare say that movie was easier to believe than the news that old classified documents have been found at Joe Biden’s UPenn office and Delaware garage. It’s not the discovery that fascinates me so much as its historical context. In 2016, Donald Trump used “Hillary’s e-mails” to portray her as unfit for office. Six years later, Joe Biden criticized Trump for keeping hundreds of classified documents — and lying about keeping them — that belonged to the government. One would be forgiven for expecting the poorly-handled-sensitive-material news cycle to end there, but these things apparently come in threes. 

Now, the nuances of today’s story currently favor Biden. He wasn’t hiding the documents or denying they were important or sneaking them out of the National Archives in his socks. That said, it’s still not an ideal situation. Trump’s supporters can now conflate his document troubles with Biden’s. More than that, those who voted for Biden over Trump because they saw him as more competent may start wondering if the men are two sides of the same coin.

Between the Inflation Reduction Act and the midterms, Biden has enjoyed a steady few months at the helm. This news threatens to change that. While I doubt the special counsel’s investigation will uncover much more than negligence, the president and his administration could give the story longer legs and their enemies more ammunition if they try to ride the story out. At the moment, that appears to be their tack, with Biden saying he’s been told not to ask what the documents concerned and Karine Jean-Pierre offering the boilerplate non-answer that the issue is under review. It’s hard to believe they can’t do better. Harder to believe than “Fargo.” They owe it to everyone — themselves included — to try.

P.S. Today’s link was originally a column by a conservative challenging Merrick Garland to announce a special counsel to investigate the Biden document discovery. Garland accepted the challenge, so instead I’ve pivoted to a simple story on the announcement. If that commentator writes a follow up column, I’ll include it along with the original piece.