I did something Wednesday afternoon that I wasn’t expecting to do.

I felt a little sorry for Harvey Weinstein.

Easy. Easy.

I said a little.

Weinstein was sentenced Wednesday to another 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting Miriam Haley, a former television production assistant. The sentence can run consecutively to the time he still faces from his California conviction. Weinstein maintains his innocence and plans to appeal.

This is Harvey Weinstein we’re talking about. The man who once sat at the top of the Hollywood food chain. Movie stars wanted Harvey’s attention. Politicians wanted Harvey’s money. People wanted to be invited to Harvey’s parties.

Harvey could make careers.

Now nobody seems to know Harvey.

Funny how that works.

But then he started describing his life at Rikers Island.

Twenty-three hours a day in a cell. Almost no companionship or sunlight. Complaints that he is cold and isn’t being given adequate blankets. Weinstein told the court he is treated as less than an animal.

And I found myself asking a question I hadn’t expected to ask:

Is this necessary?

Understand what I’m saying here. I’m not soft on crime. Never have been. There are people so dangerous that they cannot safely be around other prisoners. There are people who will kill inside prison after already being imprisoned for killing outside prison. You do what you have to do with those people.

But Harvey Weinstein?

Is somebody worried Harvey is going to shiv a guy in the prison yard?

The man is 74 years old and has appeared in court in a wheelchair. I’m not asking anybody to send him to a resort. I’m asking whether 23 hours a day alone in a cell is punishment or something approaching torture.

Those aren’t the same thing.

Then Sir Bruce, who has a law-enforcement background, supplied a detail I hadn’t considered: Weinstein’s isolation may be for Weinstein’s own protection. Weinstein reportedly wants to be in general population.

Or, as I demonstrated Wednesday, “Gen Pop.”

See? I know the lingo.

Apparently Harvey doesn’t want protective isolation. He wants to be with everybody else.

I’m not sure Harvey understands that his name recognition may work a little differently at Rikers than it did at Spago.

What a fall.

The man who once had Hollywood orbiting around him now gets rolled into court in a wheelchair, receives another 15 years and gets rolled back out.

And here’s the part that fascinates me.

Where is everybody?

Where are all those powerful people who once couldn’t wait to be photographed with Harvey Weinstein?

Where are the Hollywood friends? Where are the political friends? Where are the people who happily took his campaign contributions?

I’m not asking them to defend what he did. I’m asking where all that concern about prison conditions and criminal-justice reform went now that one of their former friends is sitting in a cell complaining about those very things.

You don’t have to like Harvey Weinstein to believe prisoners should be treated humanely. You don’t have to believe he should be released. You don’t have to forget his victims.

You can believe he deserves to be in prison and still ask whether the way we treat prisoners says something about us.

That’s where I surprised myself Wednesday. I wasn’t expecting Harvey Weinstein to make me think about mercy.

Empathy isn’t acquittal. Humanity isn’t exoneration.

Sometimes the easiest people to treat humanely are the people we already like. The test comes when the person asking for humane treatment is somebody you can’t stand.

And Harvey Weinstein is quite a test.

At one point during all this, I accidentally started calling him Harry instead of Harvey.

My bad.

Then we played the Box Tops’ “The Letter,” and I remembered Rush Limbaugh’s version involving Harry Reid.

Suddenly I had Harry Reid and Harvey Weinstein tangled together in my head.

I decided it didn’t matter. Rush would have appreciated that one.

Then we moved from Harvey to Kamala Harris, who was in Detroit campaigning for Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. Harris attended a Black maternal-health roundtable and later appeared at an NAACP event.

At the maternal-health event, Kamala gave me another one of those moments when I simply wanted somebody to explain the sentence.

She said: “An attack on DEI is an attack on maternal care.”

Okay. How?

That was my question on the air, and it’s still my question.

Diversity, equity and inclusion is a broad political and institutional concept. Maternal care is medical care for mothers before, during and after pregnancy. There may be arguments connecting particular DEI programs to disparities in maternal outcomes. Make the argument. Explain the connection. Don’t just announce that one is, “by definition,” the other and wait for everybody behind you to yell, “That’s right!”

Kamala later moved on to voting, accusing Republicans of cheating through redistricting, voter-roll purges and polling-place changes. Those are serious allegations. They deserve specifics: which jurisdiction, which officials, which voters, which changes and under what authority? The transcript captures my reaction because I kept coming back to the same thing: don’t just give me the conclusion. Show me how you got there.

Maybe that was Wednesday’s theme after all.

Ask the next question.

Harvey Weinstein says his treatment is inhumane.

Okay. Is it?

Kamala Harris says attacking DEI is attacking maternal care.

Okay. How?

She says polling places are being manipulated.

Okay. Where? By whom? Show me.

We’re living in a culture increasingly built around instant conclusions. Pick your team, hear the approved sentence and applaud.

I don’t want to do that.

Sometimes asking one more question might even lead you somewhere uncomfortable.

It led me Wednesday to feeling a little empathy for Harvey Weinstein.

I still can’t believe I just wrote that.

— Bo