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The breadth of Dr. Glenn Harlan Reynolds interests alone is impressive; his accomplishments even more so. As a law professor at the University of Tennessee he teaches constitutional, administrative, and internet law. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, Legal Affairs, the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Law and Policy in International Business, Jurimetrics, the Columbia Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, and the High Technology Law Journal.

Dr. Reynolds has testified before Congressional committees on space law, international trade, and domestic terrorism. He has been a member of the White House Advisory Panel on Space Policy and the executive chairman of the National Space Society. He is the 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, the latter elucidating the cottage industry which has sprung up from the long shadow of the Watergate scandal to help government, business, and public figures avoid accusations of wrong-doing -- never-mind actual wrong-doing itself.

Clearly, Glenn Reynolds is a busy man. He is a co-owner of the small label Wonderdog Records, a writer, producer, and/or performer with a number of bands including Mobius Dick, The Nebraska Guitar Militia, and The Defenders of the Faith, and a member of the Recording Academy. He is the author of regular columns on GlennReynolds.com and Tech Central Station, but is most famous (or infamous), however, in his capacity as the creator and writer behind Instapundit.


Instapundit is the undisputed center of an ever-expanding galaxy of easily-updated websites called blogs (short for weblogs), drawing tens of thousands of readers per day to his digital journal of commentary, generous links, quotes, opinions and analysis. Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company magazine, and the Boston Globe have all written about Dr. Reynolds high-profile status in this growing medium. Given all this, were fortunate he found time to conduct this interview with me recently via email.

Keith Daniels: You've been called the "King of Bloggers". How did Instapundit come about and what were your initial hopes for it?

Glenn Reynolds: My hopes were quite modest. I wanted to run something to keep my hand in Internet projects, in support of the Internet Law seminar I teach. And I hoped to have a couple of hundred readers.

KD: What do you feel blogs offer that the mainstream media does not?

GR: First and foremost, personality. Mainstream media have spent decades corporatizing and draining their output of character. Blogs have *lots* of character. Second, speed -- blogs can post corrections, updates, or new news in minutes. Even on websites, Big Media are slower.

KD: Has the internet changed politics?

GR: I think so. One of the key tools of the Establishment -- whether conservative or, especially, mainstream liberal -- was to marginalize people who thought differently, and to pretend that the "mainstream" of general opinion was very narrow. The Internet has put paid to that.

KD: How do you manage to find enough time in the day to do what you do?

GR: The secret is broadband internet access -- and wireless. It lets me take five or ten minutes to check email or post, without breaking the flow. When I've been stuck on dialup I've *really* noticed the difference.

KD: Who are some of your favorite political writers and commentators?

GR: Among bloggers: Andrew Sullivan, Mickey Kaus, Virginia Postrel, Steven Den Beste, Jim Henley, Megan McArdle.

In the "mainstream" world of Big Media: Michael Kelly, Charles Paul Freund, Mark Steyn, James Lileks.

KD: In recent months diplomatic tension has been high between Europe and the United States. Do you feel that the Cold War concept of "The West", meaning Europe and North America more-or-less united in purpose, is beginning to unravel?

GR: Europe has been dreadfully governed for most of the past two hundred years. The 20th Century, in particular, was marked by repeated world crises brought on by the shortsightedness and venality of European (mostly French and German) politicians. The Cold War suppressed this tendency for a while, but the absence of a common threat means that things are returning to normal over there, which is probably bad news for the rest of the world.

Culturally, the United States and Europe will retain close bonds, though the United States will, I think, become more oriented toward Latin America, Africa and Asia in the 21st century. Politically, well, it will depend. For more than half of its existence, the United
States viewed European nations and their diplomatic/military plans with deep suspicion and a measure of contempt. This may turn out to be the norm.

KD: What do you foresee as the impact of a U.S.-led war in Iraq? Will it further or hinder the future interests of American national security and foreign policy?

GR: No one knows, of course, but I'm hopeful. Things have been dreadful in the Middle East since before World War Two. The boundaries drawn by European colonial powers -- as in Africa -- are nonsensical and have led to a mixture of wars and strongman states. Culturally, intellectually, and politically those nations are impoverished, even though their inhabitants tend to do quite well when they move to, say, the United States, which is a strong suggestion that the problem is ultimately a political one.

KD: What does the possibility of unilateral U.S. military action mean for the future of the United Nations? Does the U.S. (and, by extension, the world) still need the U.N.?

GR: Well, it certainly won't be unilateral, regardless, unless by "unilateral" you mean "without France and Germany." The United Nations has played a modestly positive role in some circumstances, but overall it has failed to live up to its promise, and it has probably made things worse more often than it has made them better. Most of the time, it has been irrelevant.

KD: Should the United States continue to support Israel?

GR: Yes.

KD: A North Korean jet entered restricted South Korean air-space last week in what is presumed to be yet another in a series of recent acts of intentional provocation. What goal is North Korea trying to achieve with these actions?

GR: It's difficult to be sure, and it's not entirely clear that North Korea is acting rationally. It appears, however, to be saber-rattling in service of a shakedown scheme, with Kim Jong Il's regime hoping to generate enough foreign aid to allow it to remain in power a while longer.

KD: Do you feel it was a mistake for President Bush to rule out military action against North Korea?

GR: I would not rule out military action against North Korea, in the right circumstances.

KD: The United States currently has, relative to the rest of the world, power that is unprecedented in history. What should we do with it? What are the ideal long-term goals of the United States?

GR: We should use this power to "drain the swamps" of third-world dictatorships that promote terrorism. Sometimes that will require direct action; other times it will involve more subtle means. But we should hope to see, in a decade's time, democracies that respect individual rights -- political, social, and economic -- throughout the Middle East and in a number of other locations where sleazy dictatorships currently rule.

KD: What is the most critical issue facing Americans at home right now?

GR: I think it's important to win the war abroad quickly so that civil liberties at home will not suffer unnecessarily. And I think most reductions in civil liberties at home *are* unnecessary.

KD: Do you feel that the threat of terrorism, and the ongoing "War on Drugs", has brought about legislation (the RAVE act, the Patriot act) that un-necessarily threatens the civil-liberties of U.S. citizens? In this environment, is some sacrifice of personal freedom to be expected?

GR: There is no direct trade-off between personal freedom and antiterrorism. A few security measures may have some incidental costs in terms of liberty (though most useful ones really don't) -- but the notion that reduction in liberty somehow naturally translates into increased security from terrorism is absurd. As often as not, as with airline tweezer bans, it's entirely useless for security.

KD: Should there even be a "Drug War"?

GR: No. It's a terrible assault on civil liberties, a complete waste of time and money, and an actual impediment to the war on terrorism. It's a full-employment program for law enforcement bureaucrats.

KD: And finally: after you've spent so much time studying legal and political issues in detail, do you still have hope for the world?

GR: Oh, yes. The world has been going to Hell in a handbasket for years, yet somehow overall things have been getting steadily better.