Benjamin Wittes Profile picture
Aug 18, 2018 3 tweets 1 min read Read on X
The first time I submitted a piece to @TheAtlantic, I received a form letter postcard whose text I committed to memory: "Though we are not a likely market for your work, we thank you for your interest in the Atlantic." I may still have that card somewhere. #shareyourrejections
I noted at the time that it was not merely a rejection of the specific piece in question, but a total rejection of "your work" as a body. It all but said don't submit anything again—ever.

I later wrote a column for the magazine. And I write for the Atlantic regularly now.
Professional rejections are, in my judgment, advisory.

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More from @benjaminwittes

Aug 25, 2020
Because somewhere, there is a 15-year-old girl being terrorized online, there's a gay kid getting get hate emails from someone at school, an African American college student who is putting up with degrading stuff a colleague would never say in public but sends in private.
Read 6 tweets
Sep 23, 2018
Good thread.

Due process is clearly the wrong concept here. If it were, presumably Merrick Garland was entitled to due process too—having a hearing in the first place. There is no evidence that the Senate believes a nominee is entitled to anything as a matter of right.
If the Senate wants to establish norms and expectations about what it will and won’t do in nominations, I’m all for that. I wrote a whole book arguing for it, in fact. But you can’t refuse to hold a hearing for one highly qualified nominee and then...
...insist for another that the standards within a hearing that you reserve the right not to hold at all comport with the norms of a judicial proceeding.
Read 6 tweets
Sep 22, 2018
I don’t know the truth of #sarcasmgate and I really don’t want to see Rod Rosenstein get fired. But both @nytmike and @adamgoldmanNYT are excellent reporters. They are under a lot of fire today. Reminder that their job is not to tell you what you want to hear. That’s all I got.
Another thing: I don’t know how the Times got access to this material but I don’t believe it was White House leaks. I am unaware of the White House having access to the McCabe material.
Still another thing: this was a crazy time. Really crazy. I can’t fathom why McCabe would have memorialized a sarcastic joke—unless he misunderstood it as serious. That’s certainly possible.
Read 11 tweets
Sep 14, 2018
Boom!
lawfareblog.com/document-super…
Prior Lawfare Manafort coverage available here: lawfareblog.com/tagged/paul-ma…
I am going to refrain from commenting on this until I see whatever plea agreement, stipulation of fact, and other material gets released today. Anyone who is commenting before that is probably getting ahead of the game.
Read 4 tweets
Sep 8, 2018
These three threads from @DavidLat are very strong and worth your time. I would like to add a couple of points that apply to all three lines of questioning: Do you really think Brett Kavanaugh is so dumb—so mind-numbingly, idiotically stupid—as to lie under oath in this setting?
Even if you hate the guy, take a deep breath and consider: Kavanaugh is a very good lawyer. Very good. He was being asked about matters he knew were going to come up. He was being asked about prior testimony that took place more than a decade ago. He had time to prepare.
Any statute of limitations for that prior testimony is long passed. In other words, he could face no possible exposure for his prior statements—except if he doubled down on them in new testimony.
Read 14 tweets
Sep 3, 2018
I was surprised this morning to receive on Twitter from @EVKontorovich and on email from @jacklgoldsmith responses to my Twitter thread of yesterday that reflect a real misinterpreting of what I was trying to say. Here's the original thread:
I don't back off what I said yesterday but my regard for both Jack and Eugene is such that I assume that if they could misread me so completely, others no doubt did as well. So please indulge me a few words of clarification.
First, the tweet thread was not ever meant to be about millions of my fellow citizens or about the general Trump-supporting voter. I wrote it specifically in response to @Kasparov63's tweet of an article about Lindsey Graham. It was about leadership cadres figures.
Read 12 tweets

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