He promises “to do better” and “conquer my demons.” He misquotes Jay-Z. He says he has hired a team of therapists to “deal with the issue head on.”

But the real heart of his message was that he will be an even better progressive if given a second chance: “I’m going to need a place to channel that anger so I’ve decided I’m going to give the N.R.A. my full attention.” He’s also making a movie about Donald Trump.

And if the virtue-signaling isn’t enough, the man who has bankrolled Barbara Boxer, Charles Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand — the list goes on and on — is determined to pay out much more. “One year ago, I began organizing a $5 million foundation to give scholarships to women directors” at the University of Southern California, he said, adding, “It will be named after my mom and I won’t disappoint her.” Perhaps, like Mitt Romney, he has “binders full of women” to fill those slots.

Several Democratic politicians, including Ms. Warren, have already announced that they are planning to donate Mr. Weinstein’s campaign contributions to charity. But some women seem prepared to go along, at least for a price. Take Lisa Bloom, the feminist superlawyer who represented many of Bill O’Reilly’s victims at Fox. “When women speak our truth the old world shatters,” she tweeted this year. “We slayed the dragon.”

But now Ms. Bloom is trying to train her own dragon: Harvey Weinstein. “I’ve asked Lisa Bloom to tutor me,” Mr. Weinstein writes in his letter. “I hope that my actions will speak louder than words and that one day we will all be able to earn their trust and sit down together with Lisa to learn more.”

It would be interesting to know how much earning Ms. Bloom expects to do with that learning. I’m guessing her tutoring doesn’t come cheap.

Mr. Weinstein knows the ways of Hollywood well enough that he might get away by acting out his part in this clichéd repentance script. Or, at 64, he may have played out his last cards. Either way, what’s telling is that Ms. Bloom and his other advisers seem to believe their best chance of salvaging their damaged client is, like the Catholic Church of yore, to pay for his sins in the coin of liberal affirmation. The behavioral issues will take time.

In her interview, Ms. Paglia noted that, in the case of Mr. Clinton, “Hypocrisy by partisan feminist leaders really destroyed feminism for a long time.” She might have added that it also helped Donald Trump get elected. Here’s hoping the outspoken feminists who have been chummy with Mr. Weinstein, Meryl Streep and Michelle Obama chief among them, don’t make that mistake again by giving the grotesque Mr. Weinstein a pass.