Vice President Biden

I don't know what you should do about the allegation.  However, it doesn't seem to me that you have told the truth about it.  You have compounded a serious incident of years ago by lying about it now, and you know that for you to lie about it now means that you called your accuser a liar.

Her account seems credible.  It also doesn't sound as if you meant to hurt or frighten her or as if you realized that you were hurting and frightening her until she didn't respond the way that you had made yourself think that she would.  The confused response from you that she described makes her account more credible.

Even though you didn't mean to hurt her, the impact on her life was devastating.  You derailed her ambitions.  You terrified her.  You made her lose faith in people, which is very painful and makes life very difficult to live.

Now her resilience is being rewarded by your dishonesty, media manipulation and a bunch of people, including me, who are assuming that since nobody has the power to stop you everyone should think of your nomination as a done, tarnished deal.

I don't have an answer for whether or not the incident as described, since the statute of limitations has passed, ought to prevent you from being the President.  But you can't lie; I think you should consider how to help this woman resolve the issues that you brought into her life with your selfish actions, although it's impossible for you to return the years that this traumatic incident took from her because nobody can change the past.  Somehow, you should set an example of taking responsibility, so that this is the last election in which shameful attempts are made to seamlessly incorporate this type of incident into a narrative about a candidate's perfection.  Maybe you're drawing a blank about how to do that, but you're running for President.  If you want to apply for work that requires only the ability or motivation to solve simple problems, you're free to do so.

I also think the self-righteous hyperbole from both parties should be tempered.  This country needs to grow up.