It's exceedingly painful and inconvenient for Democrats to grapple with the sexual-assault allegation confronting former Vice President Joe Biden as he embarks on the all-important task of unseating President Donald Trump. Trump's ouster deserves to be the Democratic Party's top priority for myriad reasons going far beyond Trump's own sordid history of disrespect for women. But essential to achieving that top priority will be Democrats' ability to prove themselves more ethical, uncompromising in their principles, and less hypocritical than their Republican counterparts.

The test is whether Democrats are capable of doing the right thing, not the most politically expedient thing. Which means they must fully commit to investigate the allegation of a sexual assault 27 years ago — raised only in recent months by former Senate staffer Tara Reade — and subject those findings to public scrutiny.

On Friday, Biden categorically denied Reade's allegations. "They aren't true. This never happened," he wrote on the website Medium.com, noting multiple inconsistencies in Reade's account.

Only Biden and Reade know what really happened. Biden cannot prove a negative — that no assault took place. And Reade, like most women in such situations, has only scant circumstantial evidence to back up her allegations. Her credibility is damaged by having waited only until recently to bring them forth.

Her mother, Jeanette Altimus, with whom Reade says she confided shortly after the alleged assault, has died. Altimus was outraged and demanded justice, Reade says. It was the daughter/victim who wound up having to calm Altimus down and school her on the ways of Washington. But Altimus refused to drop it.

A 1993 recording has surfaced of a caller to CNN host Larry King speaking about unspecified "problems" her daughter had with "a prominent senator." The caller was from San Luis Obispo, California, where Altimus lived. Reade says that was her mother's voice.

Reade also says she filed a complaint with a Capitol Hill personnel office, although she can't produce any record of it. The onus is on her to locate it if she has any hope of establishing credibility. The GOP no doubt would spare no expense to help her, even though Reade is a dedicated, lifelong Democrat.

For Biden and his supporters, the key challenge will be reconciling his blanket denial with his call during the confirmation hearings of Justice Brett Kavanaugh for a full airing of the sexual assault allegations by Christine Blasey Ford. Biden joined other Democratic leaders in laying down a basic principle that Blasey Ford, like other women in that situation, deserved the benefit of the doubt. He called for a "thorough and nonpartisan effort to get to the truth, wherever it leads."

Anything short of that now would scream of hypocrisy. It's up to the Democrats to demonstrate that the standard they applied in the Kavanaugh case will be applied equally in Biden's case.

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