Paul Mirengoff was born in Washington DC in 1949. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1971 and from Stanford Law School in 1974. He served as an attorney with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for five years. Since then, he has practised law at private firms in Washington. Paul lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife Yvonne Perez Mirengoff. They have two daughters, Laura and Emily, aged 20 and 17. Paul blogs at Power Line.
Why do you blog? > In 2002, my college debate partner John Hinderaker asked me to blog at Power Line. Once I figured out what he was talking about, I realized that blogging would be too much fun not to do. And so it has been.
What has been your best blogging experience? > Learning that so many people I admire enjoy Power Line.
What has been your worst blogging experience? > There haven't really been any bad ones, but blogging about Terry Schiavo was difficult because of the nature of the subject and the criticism I received from conservatives on both sides of the issue.
What would be your main blogging advice to a novice blogger? > Don't do it unless you're confident that it will be worthwhile even if you never develop a substantial readership.
Who are your intellectual heroes? > David Hume, Adam Smith and George Orwell. Among active intellectuals, Norman Podhoretz and Charles Krauthammer.
What are you reading at the moment? > Preventing Surprise Attacks: Intelligence reform in the wake of 9/11 by Richard Posner.
Who are your cultural heroes? > Lynne Cheney for promoting the study of American history and David Horowitz for promoting free speech at colleges.
What is the best novel you've ever read? > L'Education Sentimentale by Gustave Flaubert. Also the series A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell.
What is your favourite poem? > 'Casey at the Bat' by Ernest Thayer.
What is your favourite movie? > The Godfather (Part 1).
Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind? > Most of them. Government-imposed redistribution of wealth is perhaps the most fundamental one.
What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate? > The United States is and always has been a major force for good in the world.
What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat? > We can remain safe and free without relentlessly fighting our enemies.
Can you name a work of non-fiction which has had a major and lasting influence on how you think about the world? > America's 30 Years War by Balint Vazsonyi. The insights Vazsonyi gained from living under Communism in Hungary and then living here helped rid me of any lingering statist tendencies.
Who are your political heroes? > George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan.
What is your favourite piece of political wisdom? > Seek simplicity, and distrust it.
What do you consider to be the main threat to the future peace and security of the world? > Radical Islam and the prospect that its adherents will obtain and use weapons of mass destruction.
Do you think you could ever be married to, or in a long-term relationship with, someone with radically different political views from your own? > Different, yes; radically different, probably not at this stage of my life.
What is your favourite proverb? > You can't get something for nothing.
What commonly enjoyed activities do you regard as a waste of time? > Most forms of shopping (for me, that is; not for people who enjoy doing it).
What, if anything, do you worry about? > I worry a good deal about my daughters, even though neither has ever given me real cause for concern.
If you were to relive your life to this point, is there anything you'd do differently? > I wouldn't have been a jerk when I was a teenager.
What would your ideal holiday be? > Two weeks touring America's western National Parks with my wife and kids, followed by a few days in San Francisco. My kids would be ages 12 and 9 again, but they wouldn't bicker.
If you had to change your first name, what would you change it to? > Nothing as ridiculous as Deacon. Hector, maybe.
What talent would you most like to have? > To play football like Wayne Rooney. More realistically, I wish I could still sing well.
Who is your favourite comedian or humorist? > Groucho Marx.
Who are your sporting heroes? > Wes Unseld and Sonny Jurgensen.
Which English Premiership football team do you support ? > Everton. 'Nil satis nisi optimum' (in theory, at least).
How, if at all, would you change your life were you suddenly to win or inherit an enormously large sum of money? > Practise law less; write more; attend at least one match per year at Goodison Park.
If you could have any three guests, past or present, to dinner who would they be? > Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln.
[The normblog profile is a weekly Friday morning feature. A list of the first 52 profiles, and the links to them, can be found here. Details of subsequent profiles are here.]