Joe Biden is very sorry that he has invaded anyone’s personal space. After a viral essay by Nevada politician Lucy Flores raised long-hushed questions about Biden’s physical style—either authentic warmth or sexist handsiness, depending on whom you ask—the former vice president and likely Democratic primary competitor spoke out in a rambling, homemade-looking video posted to Twitter on Wednesday, emphasizing his desire for “human connection” but noting that “Social norms have begun to change, they’ve shifted, and the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset and I get it. I get it. I hear what they’re saying.”

Does he?

Some of what “they” (women? Critics?) are saying is exactly what Biden seems to have heard: that it’s imperative men respect women’s personal space, and that when powerful men like Biden sniff your hair or kiss the back of your head, it sends a message that you are less entitled to occupy public space than they are; it sends the message that your very existence means you are vaguely sexualized and possibly demeaned. Biden, a 76-year-old man, seems to have finally learned the kindergarten lesson to keep your hands to yourself.

But what Biden doesn’t seem to hear is that those who object to his touchy-feeliness aren’t just making stylistic and aesthetic critiques. Yes, women like Flores and prominent critics like New York magazine’s Rebecca Traister are telling him to cut out the hair-smelling and head-kissing. But they’re making a much more substantive case about Biden’s politics. The problem isn’t just that his actions demean and condescend to women. The problem is that his political choices do, too.

So what would actual accountability look like for Joe Biden? The first thing he needs to do is pick up the phone, call Anita Hill, and apologize: not with the tepid non-apology he offered at an event last month focused on campus sexual assault, but for his specific role as the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and his failure to give Hill the hearing she deserved in 1991. He needs to make that call without reporters, without telling anyone about it, and without expecting anything from her in return. That’s a wrong he needs to make right, and he owes it to her alone.

If Biden decides to fully retire from the political realm—and, having not officially announced a run, that’s still possible—then his commitment to reining in his physical impulses and a direct apology to Hill would suffice, and he can live out the rest of his days in the company of his lovely family in his beloved Delaware.

But if Biden decides to run, he owes us much more. And mealy-mouthed apologies aren’t going to do it. Voters deserve to hear Biden take full responsibility for how many of the policies he supported directly harmed vulnerable communities, and what he learned in the process. Politicians aren’t fortune-tellers, and the most generous reading is that Biden made decisions in the hopes that he would make the country a safer, fairer, and more prosperous place. Given that he was so extraordinarily wrong on so very many things, if he’s asking us to trust him going forward, he should explain what lessons he’s taken away from this long list of past failures. That means identifying exactly what went wrong, what he would have done differently, and what his policy plans are now to turn this ship around.

Does he support federal funding for all health care—including abortion care—for low-income Americans? As recently as last week, Biden spokesman Bill Russo refused to tell The New York Times whether Biden continues to support a law that bans federal Medicaid dollars from paying for abortions—a law that effectively puts reproductive choice out of reach for poor women—and whether he supports a ban on federal funds for abortion research.