When it came to the fate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, a credible sexual assault allegation alone, even absent any evidence or corroboration, was enough for most Democrats to cry “believe women” and demand the Senate reject Kavanaugh’s nomination. Now that it’s Joe Biden who faces a similar sexual assault allegation, Democrats must hold their party's presumptive nominee to the same standard — or reveal themselves as cynical hypocrites once and for all.

A former Biden staffer who worked in his Senate offices in the early 1990s, Tara Reade, has come forward to accuse him of sexually assaulting her in 1993, as reported by Reason’s Robby Soave. Reade claims that Biden forcibly kissed her and reached into her pants to penetrate her while pushing her against a wall. She says fear of retaliation kept her from speaking out until now.

Of course, conservatives for consistency’s sake must insist that Biden deserves fair due process, and allegations alone are not sufficient evidence to brand a man a sexual assaulter and torpedo his reputation and career. But for Biden’s most prominent Democratic supporters, they’re in quite a tough bind due to the deeply illiberal, guilty-by-accusation precedent they set during the Kavanaugh affair.