Instapundit

Instapundit is a United States political blog produced by Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee. It is one of the most widely read blogs with political content. The blog began in August 2001 as an experiment, and a part of Reynolds' class on Internet law.

Because of his long-standing prominence in the blogosphere and his efforts to encourage new bloggers, Reynolds is sometimes referred to as The BlogFather. A 2007 memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee described him as one of the five "best-read national conservative bloggers," though Reynolds does not consider himself to be a conservative.

The blog

Instapundit frequently covers the "War on Terrorism" from a supportive-but-critical viewpoint. Other common topics are technology (such as nanotechnology, space exploration, human longevity, digital photography), individual liberty and Gun politics, domestic policy, the media, and the blogosphere as a social phenomenon. Reynolds has also lent his support to the Porkbusters campaign, which exposes and roots out misallocation of Federal funds.

Much of Instapundit's content consists of links to other sites, often with brief comments. (His frequent use of "heh," "indeed," and "read the whole thing" have been widely imitated and often parodied by other bloggers.) Reynolds encourages readers to explore the wider blogosphere and to fully read articles and posts to which he links. Since 2005, Reynolds has at times added original video reports, shot documentary-style, to the site. He covered the 2005 BlogNashville convention using video he shot himself.

In January 2006, Reynolds began to host podcasts from Instapundit, with his wife Helen Smith (who hosts discussion of the podcasts on her blog, "Dr. Helen"). Reynolds aggressively promotes the idea that bloggers, using now widely available tools such as digital audio and video, will eventually force more established news media to adapt a more agile approach to providing information, though he does not believe that "that blogs will replace Big Media".

Because of its popularity, an Instapundit link to another site can cause the traffic of that site to spike. Such an increase is often referred to as an Instalanche, or 'Lanche, a portmanteau for "Instapundit avalanche". (See the Slashdot effect for a similar phenomenon.)

In 2007, Network theory researchers who studied blogs as a test case found that Instapundit was the #1 blog for "quickly know[ing] about important stories that propagate over the blogosphere".

Political stances

Reynolds describes himself as a libertarian, specifically a libertarian transhumanist. He favors free markets and distrusts bureaucracy. To this end he opposes government interference in both the economic and personal affairs of citizens. He strongly supports the War on Terrorism and has lent some support to the war in Iraq. He is also an advocate for gun rights. On the other hand, the European Union, the United Nations, Islamic governments, American academia and mainstream media are frequent targets of critical remarks or links, and he believe that there is systemic bias in the "Mainstream Media". (And yet he once described the New York Times as "the most important news source on or off the Net".)

Reynolds, who worked for Al Gore's 1988 campaign, now largely agrees with most Republican positions on major issues such as the war in Iraq, tax cuts, health care, illegal immigration, and the environment. At the same time, he vigorously criticizes Republicans for wasteful government spending. His association with the conservative side of U.S. politics includes a book-signing appearance at the 2006 Conservative Political Action Conference, after which he characteristically hung out on Bloggers Row and conducted interviews with much less well-known bloggers.

A favorite theme on Reynolds' weblog is that reasonable political discourse must be defended from liberal bias and from leftist tendencies such as "Bush Derangement Syndrome". Reynolds also holds libertarian positions on many social issues. For example, he supports embryonic stem cell research, abortion rights, and same-sex civil unions. He has stated a number of times: "Personally, I'd be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons."

In October 2006, Reynolds was criticized heavily by Rush Limbaugh over several days for posting a "GOP Pre-mortem" suggesting that the Republicans deserved to lose the 2006 Congressional elections.

Reynolds often blogs in support of Porkbusters, which he helped create. He has vigorously criticized politicians from both parties for pork barrel spending and earmarking; then-Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss) once remarked that he was "damned tired" of the Porkbusters. Reynolds has stated in the past that earmarks and pork are not just a waste of money, but a corrupting influence on the political process.

Reynolds has testified before Congressional committees on space law, international trade, and domestic terrorism. He has also served as executive chairman for the National Space Society, and was once a member of the White House Advisory Panel on Space Policy.

In June 2009, Reynolds changed his blog header to the color green from its original red, in support of the anti-Ahmadinejad/pro-Mousavi protests made after the Iranian Presidential election. This was originally supposed to be a temporary show up support, but it lasted for three months. On September 7th, 2009, Reynolds replaced the green with his customary red, remarking, "I’m back to the original design. 'Going Green' was supposed to be a show of support, not a permanent change, and the summer’s over. My support for the Iranian freedom movement is no less, but symbolism takes you only so far."

Other writing

Reynolds is co-author of Outer Space: Problems of Law and Policy and The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society. He is also the author of An Army of Davids., a New York Times bestseller. The latter book appears to have a symbiotic relationship with his blog, inasmuch as it promotes the changing of society for the best through the efforts of individuals, seizing the initiative and empowered by technology and community. He expresses this sensibility frequently in his blog, remarking that humans work best as "a pack, not a herd."

Reynolds also writes articles for various publications (generally under his full name, Glenn Harlan Reynolds): Popular Mechanics, Forbes, The New York Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He has written for the TCSDaily.com, Fox News and MSNBC websites as well.

Reynolds has written for the Columbia Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Law and Policy in International Business, Jurimetrics, and the High Technology Law Journal, among others.

Influence on other bloggers

In an article about the growth of blogs, writer and blogger Ed Driscoll states that:

Reynolds’ quick rise to prominence helped to foster a hospitable environment for new bloggers. His background in DIY music may have been a factor: Punk and new-wave music, plus the home-recording boom of the early 1980s, encouraged an “Anybody can do this” attitude, a spirit that Reynolds carried into the emerging “Blogosphere.” In 2002, he published a list of well over two hundred blogs that claimed to be directly inspired by his own.

Instapundit's early popularity led to the common adoption of the suffix "-pundit" in blog titles, for example Kevin Drum (who originally blogged as "CalPundit") and Allahpundit. There are also direct take-offs on the entire name, such as Instapunk, and IsntAPundit. There are many other "-pundit" blogs of all political stripes. An extensive listing of blogs inspired to some degree by Instapundit may be found here.

External links

• Instapundit
• Traffic statistics
• Instapundit in 'Blogging America: Political Discourse in a Digital Nation By Barbara O'Brien
• Instapundit in Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge By Cass R. Sunstein
• Instapundit in New York Times, 2008
• Instapundit profile from New York Times, 2003
• "Bring Your Own Camera: How Sarah Can Fight Back", Glenn Reynolds, The New York Post, September 13, 2008