"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?

Solution 1:

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: 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.

Solution 2:

The phrase as you posted is ungrammatical. A better choice of preposition would be 'for':

"Except for being…"

or even better,

"Apart from being…"