Blogging and Tenure: Is a blog an asset or liability in academe?

Daniel Drezner, an academic at U of C with a traditional record of publication and scholarship was denied tenure recently. This is an interesting discussion of the role, risks and rewards of blogging in academe, specifically in the tenure track. It's not conclusive, as some tenure track bloggers got tenure while others were denied, but it raises questions about whether to blog, anonymous blogging, and the attitude of many universities toward the idea that faculty might be public intellectuals rather than one-track working drones. I am going to pass it along to those on whose tenure committees I sit. However, none of tenurees is writing a blog that I know of. I can see a day when traditional higher education institutions will experience declining enrollments analogous to the declining circulation in the newspaper business if there is a failure by these institutions to open up a bit and to adjust to the learning modalities of the "pomo" generation.