Joe Biden should address the sexual assault claim against him

The sexual assault claim against Joe Biden has been bubbling on for weeks but the former vice president and now presumptive Democratic presidential nominee seems to have carefully avoided making any direct comment about it, other than to get his associates and friends to dimiss the allegation as unfounded. The trouble with this sort of allegation, especially in the so-called Me Too era, is that once made it is not going to go away. It will rumble along as a potential negative for Biden all the way to the November election unless he gets it sorted out right now. He needs to make a full statement or at least agree to an interview that can include questions on the accusation. There is no other way of dealing with this. He can't keep on ignoring it, whether it's true, false, overhyped or malicious. Did he or did he not assault this woman Tara Reade, a former Senate aide to Biden, in 1993. That's 27 years ago. A neighbour of hers at the time has also now come forward to say Ms Reade told her about the assault after it allegedly happened. So, two voices crying out assault. I have no personal information to make any judgement either way. All I will says is that when Christine Blasey Ford accused nominated Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh of assaulting her at a party when they were at high school in 1982, my sympathies were with her and what's more I believed she was telling the truth, or at least telling the truth as she remembered it. The details were highly unpleasant. Kavanaugh gave an emotionally angry denial during his nomination process, in contrast to Ms Blasey Ford's quiet and dignified statement, and the whole episode was the starkest "he said she said" debate you could possibly imagine. Judge Kavanaugh won and Christine Blasey Ford lost. The truth? Well it sort of got lost in the bitterness. Now we have Biden versus Reade, except that it hasn't got to the bitterness stage yet and one party is publicly ignoring the other party. Sexual assault covers a multitude of wrongdoings from a violent act to being too touchy-feely or groping. She claims Biden pressed her up against a wall, kissed her neck and then touched her beneath her skirt in a highly intrusive way. There is no question that if that allegation is true down to the last detail most lawyers would say there was a prima facie case against Biden. But Biden, through his associates, says it didn't happen. So, they imply, both Ms Reade and her former neighbour are misremembering what happened or just plain making it up. Whatever the facts and whatever the truth, Biden has to face up to it. It won't go away. It's nearly May, the election is just six months away. If this drags on much longer it's going to become a bigger story and then it will look like Biden has been forced into a corner and will have no alternative but to give his story in full and with the television cameras watching his every facial expression. I'm afraid that's politics, especially presidential politics. Trump of course has in the past been accused of all kinds of inappropriate behaviour towards women and making salacious locker-room mysogenistic remarks. So I don't suppose he will be coming out to demand Biden confronts the sexual assault allegation. But the Democratic party and all the voters who plan to vote for Biden deserve a plain-speaking statement from their presumptive presidential nominee to clear the air. If he can.