I want to play out a possible political scenario that involves two close friends who happen to be members of competing political parties.

Democrat Joe Biden, the former vice president and U.S. senator, is facing questions about how he has interacted with women over the years. Some of them have complained about feeling “discomfort” because of Biden’s hands-on manner of greeting individuals.

You know the story by now. Some women have complained that Biden got a little too close for comfort. Biden has explained that he made no sexual advances on them. He said that is the way he is, but added that he recognizes that social norms have changed. “I get it,” he said.

The other fellow is his good friend, Republican Lindsey Graham, with whom Biden served in the Senate before becoming VP in 2009. Graham also is a close political ally of Donald Trump, against whom Biden might run in the 2020 presidential election.

Graham’s friendship with Biden appears — to me at least — to be much more genuine than his alliance with Trump. Indeed, just before he left office in 2017, President Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom and quoted Sen. Graham as saying about Biden, “If you can’t admireJoe Biden as a person, you’ve got a problem. He is as fine a human being as God ever created.”

Graham just recently talked about his longtime friendship with Biden while giving him the benefit of the doubt over the “too close” allegations that some women have leveled against him.

What will happen if Biden becomes the Democratic nominee for president and runs against Donald Trump? Will the president lean on his ally to savage the former VP? If he does, would Lindsey Graham take the bait?

Do personal friendships get in the way at times of political reality?

Yeah . . . they certainly do.