Joe Biden. Courtesy photo.

I've been rather agnostic whether it's time for a female president until Joe Biden announced his run for the presidency. Then, all of a sudden, it hit me: I'm done with looking up to old white men.

I didn't expect to make such a blanket statement, but Biden was the tipping point.

He's not a bad guy (though that Average Joe thing doesn't charm everybody), but his recent apology to Anita Hill drove me over the edge. Not only was it unconvincing, but it highlighted how male leaders are essentially clueless about what women deal with in the workplace and the world at large. Simply put: You can't teach old goats new tricks.

First, about that Biden apology to Hill: What's the point of waiting 28 years to say you're sorry? (Biden called Hill a month ago to apologize for the way he mishandled her testimony during the 1991 confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Then chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden allowed Republicans to trash Hill's character—remember how former Utah Senator Orrin Hatch waved a copy of The Exorcist, suggesting that Hill was possessed?—and halted the testimony of other witnesses who were scheduled to corroborate Hill's accusation's of sexual harassment by Thomas.)

And second, didn't it seem tacky for him to finally apologize on the eve of his announcement to run for the presidency? It looks like Biden's contrition has more to do with his political agenda than self-reflection.

You can't blame Hill for not embracing Biden. She told the New York Times, “I cannot be satisfied by simply saying, 'I'm sorry for what happened to you.' ” In that interview, she refused to call Biden's words “ an apology and said she was not convinced that he has taken full responsibility for his conduct at the hearings—or for the harm he caused other victims of sexual harassment and gender violence.”

Indeed, Biden seems to have taken a strangely distant stance in the apology, talking about “what happened to you,” rather than how his actions created consequences.

And on the talk show, The View, in which he appeared after news of the apology came out, Biden again refused to take direct responsibility. At one point Joy Behar said to him about Hill: “I think she wants you to say 'I'm sorry for the way I treated you, not for the way you were treated.' ” But Biden answered: “ But I'm sorry the way she got treated. I never heard—if you go back and look at what I said and I didn't say, I don't think I treated her badly. I took on her opposition.”

While it's probably true that Biden wouldn't have handled the hearings the same way in the post #MeToo era, it's unclear how much he's really learned. Judging from his abstract apologies, including those about his touchy-feely ways, I think there's a limit to his empathy—which is probably why he's that bungling Everyman of his era.

Biden's critics are now saying that he needs to do a more full-throated apology—take responsibility, acknowledge how his actions diminished women who make charges of sexual harassment and enabled the elevation of a Supreme Court justice who's hostile to women's rights.

Hill also told the New York Times: “The focus on apology, to me, is one thing. But he needs to give an apology to the other women and to the American public because we know now how deeply disappointed Americans around the country were about what they saw.”

I say why bother? The apology ship sailed long ago. Biden is who he is–a decent, if inept, leader who doesn't quite get it. He's an anachronism best left by the wayside.

Contact Vivia Chen at [email protected]. On Twitter: @lawcareerist.