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 political blogs.[1] The blog, started in August 2001, began as an experiment and a part of Reynolds' class on Internet law. Because of his long-standing prominence in the political blogosphere and his efforts to encourage new bloggers, Reynolds is sometimes called the BlogFather.[2]

Instapundit is sometimes considered a "warblog" because of its frequent supportive coverage of America's War on Terrorism and war in Iraq ^{[citation needed]}. Other common topics are technology (such as nanotechnology, space exploration, and digital photography), individual liberty, domestic politics, the media, and the blogosphere as a social phenomenon. Reynolds has recently lent his support to the Porkbusters campaign.

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. In 2005, Reynolds has at times added original video reports, shot documentary-style, to the site. He covered the 2005 BlogNashville convention using personally-shot video.

Beginning in January 2006, Reynolds began to host podcasts [3] 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 [4].

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", a portmanteau for "Instapundit avalanche". (See the Slashdot effect for a similar phenomenon.)

Political stances

Reynolds has stated on his blog that he is a libertarian [5], specifically a libertarian transhumanist [6]. He tends to favor free markets and to distrust bureaucratic action in both economic and personal affairs. He supports gun rights. The European Union, United Nations, and "Big Media" are all frequent targets of negative remarks or links. Reynolds frequently criticises Democrats, especially concerning foreign policy, while both praising and criticising Republicans. He strongly supports Democrat positions such as embryonic stem cell research and abortion rights, and supports civil unions. He has written: [7]

Personally, I'd be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons.

Reynolds often blogs in support of Porkbusters, which he helped create. He has vigorously criticized politicians from both parties for pork barrelling and earmarking.

Criticism and controversy

Reynolds and his blog are frequent targets of attack, mainly from other bloggers. Reynolds has been accused of promoting violence[8] and demonstrably false information[9] by linking to others with such material, but by not explicitly endorsing it since his trademark short comments often fail to explicitly state an opinion on the matter[10]. Glenn Greenwald has written that "Reynolds' need to parade around as the moderate, reasonable libertarian - always promoting and applauding the grossest extremism while staying safe enough distance away from it to give plausible deniability - is inherently deceitful to its core",[11] and that Reynolds is a leading member of a "highly authoritarian movement which seeks to vest unlimited and unrestrained power in their Leader, views garden-variety political dissent as blasphemy and treason, and glorifies violence as a justifiable tool to achieve their glorious political ends."[12]

Other critics argue that the site has become increasingly partisan, in particular that it expansively defends the war in Iraq and minimizes negative developments there.^{[citation needed]} Libertarians who oppose the war in Iraq often argue that he is drifting away from libertarianism.^{[citation needed]}

Some have argued that Reynolds is a frequent target of puerile insults, even by the standards of the blogosphere. For example James Wolcott has described Reynolds as "Instadunce"[13], "publicity-whory"[14] and a "rube"[15]. Reynolds was for a time called "Instacracker"[16] [17] [18] by some bloggers. Brian Leiter calls him "tediously reactionary" [19] and "Glenn 'no bit of right-wing sliminess is beneath me' Reynolds" [20].

Blogs inspired by Instapundit

Note: Instapundit's fame has led to the common adoption of the suffix "-pundit" in blog titles. Some sites are sympathetic to Instapundit, and others oppose the blog.

External links