“We’re in the process of deciding the basic cut – about whether or not they really want it,” Biden said. “Are they comfortable? They’ve asked a lot of questions.”

“I think that I need somebody who in fact is simpatico with me, both in terms of personality as well as substance,” he said. “That means they don’t have to agree with me on everything, but they have to have the same basic approach to how we handle the economy and how we handle everything.”

“I want to make sure that … whoever I have, has some qualities that I don’t possess, as well as is willing to, in fact, tell me the truth, but also do it in a way that is between the two of us between her and me so that they can, in fact, be completely candid with me, because I want to have people around me that have strengths and capacities I don’t,” Biden added.

“It’s been really excruciating coming forward about Joe Biden. He was my boss, and I really liked him, and I liked what he represented,” Reade says. “When that sexual assault happened, it was devastating. I mean, he was like my father’s age. He was my boss. And I felt, for some reason when it happened, at that time, because of what he said to me, I felt somehow I brought it on.”

As the Democratic presidential race was getting underway in the spring of 2019, Reade was one of eight women who came forward in quick succession to allege that Biden had touched them inappropriately, made them feel uncomfortable, or invaded their personal space in the past. (Those complaints included allegations that Biden kissed them on the back of the head, rubbed noses, or hugged them “just a little bit too long.”)

Last week, this theater of the absurd got slightly more surreal when a prominent feminist wrote in the New York Times that she thinks Biden is a rapist, but will vote for him anyway. Linda Hirshman, a retired professor of women’s studies and philosophy, and a prolific author (most recently of Reckoning: The Epic Battle Against Sexual Abuse and Harassment), explained to Times readers that she believes Reade, but also believes that “the cost of dismissing Tara Reade—and, worse, weakening the voices of future survivors” is justified on purely utilitarian grounds, since (as she sees it) Trump is the greater evil

The phrase “boys will be boys” has been used historically to excuse bad behavior by men with a shrug instead of with punishment. But in 2015, things should be different. We don’t allow bosses to rub their secretaries’ shoulders, smell their hair, or look them up and down and exclaim “holy mackerel!” all things Biden has done to daughters and wives of people with much less power than he has.

That this goes on in front of all of us, and few criticize it, is shameful. It might be hard for the families of these girls and women to stand up to the vice president. It shouldn’t be as hard for the rest of us.