For President Joe Biden, the second 100 days are turning out to be harder than the first.

After a sure-footed start in office focused on the priorities he chose – controlling the pandemic and reviving the economy – Biden last week found himself pulled into the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, a long-running problem he probably can't fix but also can't ignore. White House negotiations with Republican senators on a signature infrastructure bill stalled, a test of the bipartisanship he has promised. Prospects evaporated that Congress could meet Biden's deadline to pass a police reform bill by Tuesday, the one-year anniversary of George Floyd's murder.

And Democrats on the left, largely supportive of the administration so far, made their first big break with the White House, demanding the president do more to confront Israel and protect the Palestinians.

It's the lesson his predecessors in the White House also learned: Sooner or later, reality bites.

The first 100 days:Why Joe Biden's presidency has been so surprising

In their early months in office, presidents are always at risk of being tested by foreign adversaries, challenged by the partisan opponents in Congress, and sidetracked by crises of all sorts. Unexpected developments can redefine a presidency in an instant, as the 9/11 attacks did for George W. Bush during his first year in office, or distract presidents from the course they intended to chart, a problem that bedeviled Bill Clinton at the beginning.

Now conflicts and calamities are testing whether Biden has the ability to address them – and the agility to prevent them from overwhelming the causes he wants to pursue.

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The former Delaware senator and two-term vice president has had a long time to watch how commanders in chief swim, or sink, in roiling waters. Elected to Congress when Richard Nixon was in the White House, he has seen nine of them up close.