prepositions - "Except as being" or "except being"


I stumbled upon a phrase on the internet the grammar of which I can't understand.



Except as being a bit too conservative and Republican-Lite, don't you think XXX is one of the best President?



It was written by a native speaker, so it's most likely that it's just me who can't grasp the meaning of the sentence, not a grammatical mistake in it. Why is except as being used here? Wouldn't except being be fine?



Answer



While I agree with @andrewdotnich that I'd probably write either 'except for being' or 'apart from being' before writing 'except as being', it is by all means grammatical. This NGram: enter image description here shows that except as being was used quite frequently in the 1800's and was overtaken by "except for being" around the turn of the century.


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