Partisan hypocrisy as theater of the absurd

A pox on all their houses.  One of the last remaining Democratic efforts to knee-cap Trump as a future candidate is the Mar-a-Lago raid in which, under mirky circumstances, the DOJ raided the private residence of Trump in order to retrieve some documentation from his presidency, the security status of which are disputed.  

The raid attracted widespread condemnation as a naked partisan effort to weaponize the Justice Department to advance one political party over the other.  

It does not help that the whole area of what documents a President is permitted to retain is murky.  There have been issues with just about every President that I can recall over the past forty years.  And it is not just document retention which is dicey.  Who can forget the spectacle of the Clinton's making off with nearly $200,000 of White House property like a couple stealing Motel 6 towels and  ashtrays.  

It is this absence of black letter law or standardization of practice which made the Mar-a-Lago affair so whiffy.  

And both parties are weaponizing this sordid affair.  From 'When is the FBI going to raid the White House?': Trump leads Republican rage as he demands action after ten classified documents were found at Biden's think tank from his time as VP - when he did NOT have power to declassify documents by Willis Robinson and Harriet Alexander.  Also from Biden Lawyers Found Classified Material at His Former Office by Peter Baker, Charlie Savage, Glenn Thrush and Adam Goldman.  The subheading is The White House said it was cooperating as the Justice Department scrutinizes the matter. 

Apparently Biden made off with some secure documents from his time as VP which he subsequently inappropriately transferred to a think tank he had founded.  

Clearly there is a longstanding problem.  There should be clear guidelines which are consistently administered at every presidential transition governing both what property can be removed and what documents under what circumstances.  

That after all these years and the sequence of controversies, it is somewhat astonishing that this has not yet been done.

And now we have the former president trumpeting the hypocrisy of the current president for doing exactly the same thing.  It is all clear and understandable as political theater.  And it is clearly being orchestrated from the White House.

But none of this is particularly germane to the functioning and well-being of the nation.  Write the regulations, apply them consistently, don't use the federal bureaucracy to pursue partisan strategies against opponents.  This is easy stuff when we have much more challenging problems to tackle.  Why on earth are we wasting our time on this.  

Other than as a point of distraction?