How might Vice President Biden atone for his failure in respect of Anita Hill? That turns out to be bothering him now that he’s trying, yet again, to decide whether he wants to run for president. Back in 1991, Mr. Biden chaired the Senate hearing at which Ms. Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. Ms. Hill hoped to derail Judge Thomas’ nomination to be a justice of the Supreme Court.

“To this day I regret I couldn’t come up with a way to give her the kind of hearing she deserved,” Mr. Biden said at an event here in New York. He reckons that, as the Associated Press paraphrases him, Ms. Hill “should not have been forced to face a panel of ‘a bunch of white guys’ about her sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas.” Adds the ex-Veep: “I wish I could have done something.”

This is being met with guffaws and jeers — or what the AP calls “swift condemnation” — from the Democrats’ own camp, which lit up on the social press. “It literally does not matter what else Biden says about sexual assault,” the AP quotes a former aide to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign as saying. Actress and activist Mia Farrow called Biden’s role in the 1991 hearings “shameful.” Another called Mr. Biden a “poser.”

Our own view is that Democrats gave Ms. Hill a full chance to levy her charge of sexual harassment. They reopened the hearing to give her the chance to speak. The Judiciary Committee then deadlocked seven to seven. So the nominee went to the floor without a recommendation. The Senate confirmed him with a bipartisan vote by 11 Democrats, whose party controlled the Senate, and 41 Republicans.

The vote reflected a hard principle of American life — that the burden is always on the accuser. Had Ms. Hill accused Justice Thomas in a criminal proceeding, she would have had to convince a jury so that it was unanimous. Senate confirmation is merely a political proceeding. So all Ms. Hill needed was to have won over a simple majority. It’s no small thing that she failed to win even that.

Despite that, Ms. Hill went on to have a fine career as a professor, lawyer, author, and activist. Justice Thomas, for his part, has emerged as a towering figure on the Supreme Court, respected across the bench and the land. He is reviving what Myron Magnet, in a new biography due out from Encounter in May, calls the “Lost Constitution.” Justice Thomas’ achievement will be immortal.

As for Mr. Biden, it’s hard to imagine that the ex-veep can advance his case by advertising so abjectly what, by his own terms, is his failure at a defining moment in his career. If Mr. Biden wants to atone, the best thing for the Democrats and the country would be for him to stand aside gracefully so that a new generation can try to succeed where he failed.