When the New York Times story on Harvey Weinstein's sexual predation broke, I speculated that the reason the Times would go after a stalwart Dem donor was the irresistible nature of the scoop, and the prospect of it being lost, once the "O'Connor Memo" (an internal Weinstein Company report) was being leaked.

Rabbi Aryeh Spero, a regular AT contributor, has a different perspective and emailed me:

My opinion: He was no longer truly one of their own. At the annual Algemeiner Dinner in NYC, Weinstein openly praised the Israelis and how they are willing to fight. He said he loves Israel...and admires how the Israelis use weapons to protect themselves. He contrasted the Israelis with the misfortune of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto who did not, unfortunately, he said, have guns. Indeed, he announced, as he had a few months previously, that he was in the midst of preparing and making a movie about the Warsaw Ghetto. He loved fighting Jews, he said.

Nothing irks and riles the N.Y. Times more than someone who is a proud, vocal supporter of Israel, believes in Jews fighting in their own defense, physically and with guns...especially if that person is a liberal and Democrat. That cannot be allowed! And to boot, equating Israel's efforts against the Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians with the Warsaw Ghetto. They could never allow that. No way! So they brought him down. They have dossiers on many they don't use until they need to make an example.

According to your blog post, Weinstein said he was temporarily going to stop making movies...in other words, including the Warsaw Ghetto movie. That was the response they wanted, the quid pro quo. And his repentance for abusing women was, get this, to work against the NRA. That's his mea culpa? But you see, their problem was his position on guns. So that's the mea culpa. Sexual sins are forgiven if one agrees to work against gun ownership.

No, the Times was not being an equal tormentor to all, rather setting an example to destroy one of their own who had strayed too far from the reservation by supporting an armed and victorious Israel. The Times despises a strong Israel as much as it hates Donald Trump.

Update. Ethel C. Fenig calls our attention to a similar hypothesis from J.J. Gross in the Times of Israel.