BeldarBlog

Because we can learn about Sarah Palin from looking at her family scrapbook ...

More Palin pix — you'll want to see these. (H/t to Prestopundit Greg Ransom, who has many other great links, videos, and posts on Gov. Palin!)

MSM and critics mischaracterize Palin as being ignorant of general Veep job duties by taking out of context her statement that she'd want to know her specific responsibilities as McCain's Veep

I had previously seen online references to Gov. Sarah Palin having asked a question during an interview on CNBC that supposedly demonstrated her lack of understanding of the general job responsibilities of the Vice President of the United States. The argument thus being peddled is that Sarah Palin can't possibly be qualified for the job if she doesn't know what it is.

It was not until this morning, though, that I saw a video clip on NBC's "Meet the Press" which included this exchange from an interview she did with Larry Kudlow on July 31, 2008. I immediately set about tracking down the full clip, and here it is. I encourage you to watch it for yourself. The relevant portion starts at 2:16. Here's my transcription of what was said from that point forward:

KUDLOW: ... Is this police flap state investigation going to disqualify you from becoming Senator McCain's vice presidential candidate?

PALIN: Well, it shouldn't disqualify me from anything, including progressing the state's agenda here towards more energy production so we can contribute more to the U.S. Nor should it dissuade any kind of agenda progress in any arena, because again, I haven't done anything wrong. And through an investigation of our lawmakers who are kind of looking at me as the target, we invite those questions, so that we can truthfully answer those questions.

But as for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers, for me, what is it exactly that the VP does every day. I'm used to being very productive and working really hard in the [inaudible] administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position. Especially for Alaskans, and for the things that we're trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I could even start addressing that question.

KUDLOW: Well, I worked in the White House during President Reagan's first term, let me assure you — and I've spent a lot of time in the Bush White House as a journalist in meetings and interviews. It's a pretty big job, Madam Governor. It's a real big job. You'd be surprised how big the veep job is these days.

PALIN: Well, this is a pretty cool job here too, as governor of Alaska.

The portion I've printed in blue is all that Brokaw played today on "Meet the Press," and the quotes I've seen elsewhere had only included the first sentence. Nevertheless, after playing the clip, Brokow asked with a chortle: "You don't think, David Gregory, that we're going to see that in some Democratic ad, do you?" And Gregory, chortling back, said he thought it might. Just as if this were an absolutely air-headed statement by Palin, as if she'd said, "Duh, what's any vice president supposed to do anyway?"

But on watching the larger video clip for context — and especially hearing Gov. Palin's emphasis on the phrase "for me," and her deliberate pause before and after it — it's absolutely clear that she was not talking about the job responsibilities of vice presidents in general, but rather about what kind of specific duties she would be delegated in this particular administration.

Thus her references to being a productive and busy person, with an important job now, which she clearly wouldn't want to give up to be a figurehead vice president. Thus her concern that she be part of an administration in which the VPOTUS slot is actually a "fruitful position." Kudlow certainly understood her that way. Why else would he emphasize modern vice presidents like George H.W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and the "how big the veep job is these days"? She didn't argue with him, but again, quite properly, referred to the practical importance of the job she was already doing.

Earlier in the same program, Brokaw had played a video clip from 2000 in which McCain, in disclaiming any interest in becoming the vice presidential nominee to run with George W. Bush, said that vice presidents have two jobs: inquiring daily as to the health of the president and attending funerals. McCain was almost certainly using that joke to evade the question, or rather, to give a glib answer for why he wouldn't be interested in it. But if he wasn't just joking — if he really doesn't intend to let his vice president do anything more than go to funerals while waiting for him to die — then probably nobody would want to be John McCain's vice president.

Thus, I don't fault Sarah Palin for wanting to be know, before agreeing to run for vice president, what kind of specific responsibilities would be delegated to her. That's the kind of conversation that all recent presidential candidates, from both parties, have assured us that they've had with all recent Veep nominees, and we're further told that they've pledged to work as close and real partners, etc.

Bottom line: What the cynics and the critics the MSM are portraying as Palin being clueless was actually just another example of her being thoughtful and savvy.

Get used to this kind of misrepresentation about Sarah Palin. Be suspicious; demand context; consider motives. Then make up your own mind.

Palin and the résumé test: a respectful reply to James Joyner

[Note: I'm republishing here the photo that ran with the post to which I'm replying, not because it's at all relevant to the subject matter, but because it shows Gov. Palin in 2007 in her Anchorage office in a relaxed setting that includes a bearskin (her father shot that grizzly) and an Alaskan king crab. I think it's a fetching photo. Photo credit goes to Stephen Nowers and the Anchorage Daily News. — Beldar]

Among the right-of-center pundits who remain unconvinced that the Palin nomination was a good idea, I think James Joyner at Outside the Beltway has one of the more balanced and rational arguments. He starts a post today by rejecting those Palin critics who want to categorize her as just a "small-town mayor," noting that that slights her experience as a state governor. (I'd add to that, "state energy and ethics regulator" too.) But then he concludes that Palin flunks what Dr. Joyner calls the "résumé test" (links in original):

The four people on the two national tickets include two, McCain and Joe Biden, who are manifestly prepared to be president using the résumé-at-a-glance test. They’ve both spent decades at the highest levels of government service, including the making of American foreign and national security policy.

A third, Obama, has convinced the Democratic nominating electorate and roughly half the country, judging by the current polls, that he has unique gifts that make him ready despite a dearth of traditional experience.  Even those of us ideologically predisposed against him acknowledge that he’s unusually bright and a quick study. And the mere fact that he’s been running for president for the last two years has sped his preparation along.

And then there’s Sarah Palin. Some smart people whose opinions I respect, including Bill Dyer and my colleagues John Burgess and Dave Schuler, are favorably impressed by her. But most of the country had never heard of her before yesterday.  She doesn’t pass the résumé test. So, she’ll have to persuade the public that she’s ready on the campaign trail, the interview shows, and a debate against Joe Biden.

I do agree with that final sentence: The burden of persuasion, to borrow a phrase from the law, is definitely on Gov. Palin, and that's as it should be. (As I wrote earlier this evening, I'm very confident that she'll meet that burden in the weeks ahead.)

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I don't buy, however, the notion that the kind of cunning, position-shifting, puffery, and outright deception that Barack Obama has practiced during his campaign so far has "sped his preparation." It's certainly prepared him to be a more effective candidate, but that has only a partial overlap with being an effective president, and some of the non-overlapping areas are very troublesome indeed. (Thus I would argue that Bill Clinton is the best presidential candidate of my lifetime and yet, behind only Jimmy Carter, the worst president.) Maybe Dr. Joyner meant to reference the preparation of position papers, selection and vetting and interaction with advisors, and pre-election debating of issues inherent in a political campaign. I have my doubts, however, even with respect to that.

Recall (if you're old enough, or a student of history) that one of the major debates of the 1960 election between Kennedy and Nixon was over the so-called "Missile Gap." The Soviets seemed to be far ahead in the space race, and the western press and public were under the mistaken impression that they had far more, and far more dangerous, nuclear-tipped ICBMs than the U.S. In fact — as both candidates knew, but could not reveal — the U.S. had a multi-fold superiority over the Soviets in strategic missiles, whether measured in launchers, warheads, or accuracy. The "Missile Gap" favored our side, dramatically. Was the posturing between Kennedy and Nixon, then, over who'd be the best candidate to end the Missile Gap, useful preparation for either of them to govern? Perhaps — if you think your candidates need practice in the methodical telling and concealing of lies. (But Kennedy and Nixon were both masters at that already — as is, I respectfully submit, Barack Obama.)

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More fundamentally, back on the subject of the "résumé test": Résumés can mislead, sometimes very badly. Joe Biden is the poster-child for that, actually. He's been the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Does that mean he's better at law and legal issues than his law school class rank (76th of 85) might suggest? You might think so — unless you actually watched him in any Judiciary Committee hearings on various SCOTUS nominees, during which he's consistently proved himself to be an ignorant blowhard. He's the current chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Does that résumé credential mean he's a wise person on military and diplomatic matters? Well, he opposed the 1991 Gulf War, supported the Iraq War, opposed the Surge, and was the leading proponent of tri-secting Iraq into three independent countries (each of which would have been unstable, and each of which would have been guaranteed to be in thrall to its neighbors). He's widely regarded by Iraqis as the stupidest American on Middle Eastern affairs.

If one's "résumé test" is limited to one page containing nothing but dates and job titles for each candidate, then yeah, McCain and Biden look fine, and Obama and Palin don't. Now, I know Dr. Joyner is not only open to looking deeper than that, but that he's eager to do so: That's what makes him one of the pundits I most enjoy arguing with, and why I, too, respect his opinions. It would be as unfair to accuse him of being wedded exclusively to a simplistic "résumé test" as it is for other pundits to call Sarah Palin "just a small-town mayor."

So the obvious solution is: Dig deeper. Look harder and longer. In assessing experience, consider accomplishments, and consider their setting, in addition to considering job titles and tenures. When you do that, Sarah Palin becomes not only the most popular GOP governor among her own constituents, and one of the most successful in getting her programs passed into law by her state legislature, but one of the most effective political reformers in America from either party. Some conservatives would disagree with him, but McCain certainly would see himself as also being on that short list, along with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

When it comes to Sarah Palin, I've been doing that sort of analysis since June, so I have a head start. Essentially all of my blogging on her has been to help others do that kind of scrutiny. And I'm content for fair-minded critical thinkers like James Joyner to catch up on their own and in due time; I hope they'll come round to join me as one of Gov. Palin's fans.

A plea for patience with sour, conventional conservative pundits who are still getting their minds around the Palin pick

I've gotten more than a few emails urging me to take up the cudgels against David Frum or Charles Krauthammer or other conservative pundits who've expressed anything from serious reservations to outright alarm at the Palin nomination. One, whom I won't mention by name here, said that if the Palin nomination excites the GOP base, we ought to "get a new base."

That's smug and unattractive and out-of-touch, of course. I love to argue, and some of these sour-pusses have opened themselves to potentially devastating counter-snark. But I'm trying to suppress that instinct.

Sarah Palin is indeed an unconventional choice, and a risky one. Her own words at the announcement rally acknowledged that, when she said that a ship in harbor is safe, but staying in the harbor is not what a ship is built for.

Presumably those pundits approved of Bob Dole's 1996 campaign. Well, maybe they faulted him for his "risky" selection of Jack Kemp as his running-mate, although Kemp certainly performed as well as Dole did — which is to say, nobly and consistently in an obviously uninspired and electorally foredoomed cause. McCain shares more than a few traits with Dole ("old" and "often grumpy" and "war hero" among them). But he's obviously concluded that he's not going to stand there motionless as he watches a called third strike. And I applaud McCain for that.

The opening splash of the Palin announcement has been all I'd hoped it might be, and I thought she was terrific at the rally. And something that just thrilled me, that hit me at a very emotional level, was at the very end of her prepared remarks, when she turned to face McCain again and shake his hand. You couldn't hear her over the music and the roar of the crowd. But you could very distinctly see her lips say to John McCain the words, "Thank you, sir!"

Oh, my! A national candidate who doesn't just profess humility, but actually still possesses it, and who displays unselfconscious respect for the older generation of which McCain is a part! What a fine, fine thing, that "sir" — as she thanked McCain for giving her this chance, for taking a risk on her. And you could see in her face the determination to do her very best not to let him down.

Oh, that's good stuff. That's so American. That's "Put me in Coach, and get me the ball!" Notwithstanding her stress fracture in her foot, when the other team fouls her, she'll sink the free-throws to score the game's final points to clinch the state championship. And yeah, that's what actually happened to Sarah Palin in her senior year of high school.

So now, she has to perform, figuratively and literally. She will not shrink from the challenge. The glare will be harsh, the microscope will be cranked down, and some of the interlocutors will not be acting in good faith. But most of the American public will be watching in good faith, and many of them will find her easy to identify with.

Let Sarah Palin win over the Charles Krauthammers and the David Frums. Let her win over the skeptics of all stripes and colors. Let us, who are already her admirers, avoid alienating those skeptics in the meantime. I do not expect a pitch-perfect, error-free performance from her on every day between now and the election. But I believe that the basic qualities that have brought her conspicuous success in Alaska will bring her success on a national stage too, not overnight, but over time. To finish horribly mixing my metaphors: This isn't her first rodeo, it's just her biggest.

In the meantime, abide by her, and with the skeptics. They're not bad people, they're just unconvinced. Let Sarah convince them.

Palin's kids are NOT named after TV witches (sheesh)

If there were any shred of doubt left as to whether Andrew Sullivan is a ridiculous tool — and guest poster Alex my friend Patterico at Patterico's Pontifications has cataloged several other examples — it's erased by his uncritical, enthusiastic republication of a reader email asserting that Sarah Palin's daughters Willow and Piper are named after TV witches in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed. Sullivan describes his reader as "plumbing the weirdness," presumably of Gov. Palin, and includes this quote: "The governor obviously has a penchant for television shows of paranormal female empowerment."

Stuart Buck and Jonah Goldberg both link and reprint this nonsense, although Stuart was properly skeptical (noting have both tried to dispel this nonsense. Stuart noted that the birth and TV series dates don't work out, and Jonah suggested that Sullivan just go ahead and become a dKos diarist, when he (Jonah) followed up with printing a reader email linking this People Magazine interview Q&A:

Where do your children's names come from?

TODD: Sarah's parents were coaches and the whole family was involved in track and I was an athlete in high school, so with our first-born, I was, like, 'Track!' Bristol is named after Bristol Bay. That's where I grew up, that's where we commercial fish. Willow is a community there in Alaska. And then Piper, you know, there's just not too many Pipers out there and it's a cool name. And Trig is a Norse name for "strength."

That's pretty close, but it's at slight variance with what's in Kaylene Johnson's excellent biography of Gov. Palin, Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down (which I reviewed at length here). She reports (at pages 39-40):

Meanwhile [in 1989], the couple had started a family. The Palins named their first child, a boy, Track, after the track and field season in which he was born. Sarah’s father jokingly asked what they would have named their son if he had been born during the basketball season. Without hesitation Sarah answered "Hoop."

Between babies, Sarah worked short stints at TV stations and at a utility company. The Palins first daughter was born in 1990. They named her Bristol after the ocean where they fished. Willow was born in 1994, named after willow ptarmigan, Alaska’s state bird. Their youngest daughter, Piper Indy, came in 2001. She was named after the Piper Cub that Todd flies and the Polaris Indy snowmobile Todd drove in the first of his four victories in the Iron Dog snowmobile race, a grueling 2000-mile run from Wasilla to Fairbanks by way of Nome.

As for the slight inconsistency on Willow's name, I frankly trust fellow hockey-mom and neighbor Johnson over First Dude Todd's explanation, and as a fellow father I can excuse him if he temporarily forgot about Alaska's state bird, the Lagopus lagopus alascensis Swarth a/k/a Alaska Willow Ptarmigan. (Whether his daughter will be similarly forgiving remains to be seen.)

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UPDATE (Sat Aug 30 @ 7:20pm): Linking Stuart Buck's post, Glenn Reynolds notes that "maybe it's a bogus rumor, but Buffy fans will dig it." I'm a Buffy fan too, in moderation, but all of the humor here is in how clueless and paranoid and weird Sully is. As for Gov. Palin, I believe she has a good sense of humor, a mischievous one, and my strong hunch is that the "Van" just before the surname in infant son Trig's name is a deliberate pun on "Van Halen," which I suspect goes back to a long-running Palen family joke.

And seriously, whether it's "She worships witches!" or "She craves female empowerment," all that sort of nonsense, when someone tries to use it as a weapon against Sarah Palin, is going to only embarrass those who are capable of feeling shame (which I don't think includes Sullivan anymore). One reason I'm so psyched about her nomination is that I don't see her as some sort of fragile construct who'll fold up and blow away. Sarah Barracuda has elbows. And she is so genuinely all-American that attempts to make her seem weird, or radical, are just not going to get any traction whatsoever.

Obama's first post-Palin-pick TV ad: Um, look over there, there's Dubya!

Voiceover: "Well, he's made his choice," says a female voice, "but for the rest of us, there's still no change."

(Cut from video clips of energized crowd cheering McCain and Palin to videos of single man, then a single woman in facial close-up, both obviously painfully constipated, but thoughtful.)

Voiceover: "McCain doesn't get it!" she insists.

(Cut to video showing McCain and Dubya, hugging.)

"Because, uh, um, George W. Bush is evil. And he's a ... uh ... uh, a chimp! Yeah, a chimp! An ugly one, too! And we'll have four more years, never mind anything else about John McCain, especially never mind that he's just made a dramatic, visionary selection for his running mate which threatens to turn our constipation into a sudden case of the squirts ...."

Well, no, actually, that last paragraph is just my interpretation of the sub-text. The real text is the same old "four more years of the same," yada yada yada.

They're utterly pole-axed. Their universe has been turned upside down. Someone cut the wires to all of their electro-magnets, and suddenly what was magical and transcendant and radiating hopey-changey happy waves is now exposed as slag. They can't even speak her name.

Single most clueless media "attack" on Gov. Palin's credentials

For the same day of the announcement, the Utterly Clueless "I'm a troll who lives inside the Beltway and could not possibly survive for 12 hours if abandoned in any red-state city for 24 hours" Award goes to Jonathan Martin at the Politico (boldface mine):

Palin, 44, is less than two years removed from being mayor of Wasilla, Alaska; has no military or foreign policy experience in a time of grave international threat; and has never even appeared a single time on "Meet the Press," let alone been scrutinized by a voracious and around-the-clock modern media beast.

Because, ya know, Chuck Hagel has been on "Meet the Press" lots of times.

Second-place runner-up "Some of the People All of the Time" awards go to all those who've seriously argued that Barack Obama's comparative lack of political accomplishment is irrelevant because, after all, he's managed to run a successful campaign for the nomination of his party. This point of view envisions America as a kind of perpetual Hell in which Bill Clinton, or whoever can best emulate his slickest and most insincere qualities, forever reigns supreme. The notion that "I can get elected, therefore I deserve more than anyone else to be elected" is profoundly sick.

Palin knows being pro-production doesn't mean being in the oil companies' pocket

Saturday's Houston Chronicle has a superb, insightful article by staff reporter Tom Fowler which quotes independent but knowledgeable energy industry experts who are familiar with Gov. Sarah Palin's record. It's packed with specific facts about that record, and the quoted experts ably draw a set of important distinctions. The article starts with a bang (boldface mine):

In an election where energy has moved to the top of the agenda, Republican vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin arguably brings more credibility on the topic than anyone else on the two major tickets.

She's the governor of Alaska, where close to 85 percent of the budget comes from oil revenue. It's second only to Texas among the states in oil production.

She's the previous head of the state's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and is married to a North Slope oil production engineer.

Since taking office in 2006 she has thrown out the previous administration's plans for a North Slope natural gas pipeline, which had been criticized as too generous to oil producers, and has bolstered state coffers through an overhaul of the state's oil and gas tax structure.

"Between Biden, Obama and McCain, Palin is the only one who can spell 'energy.' The rest of these guys are completely clueless," said David Pursell, an analyst with Houston-based Tudor Pickering Holt & Co., an energy investment and research firm.

So does industry knowledge translate into closeness? To the contrary:

Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said Palin knows the energy industry, "warts and all," and understands the importance of energy policy.

"She has shown an independent streak and has been anything but a patsy in dealing with the oil industry in Alaska," Bullock said.

The article notes that doctrinaire liberal interest groups (my characterization) insist that Palin is a puppet of the industry, which is also how they've characterized Bush and Cheney. At least with respect to Palin, however, that's just hogwash, say candid Alaska Democrats who actually know:

But Mike Doogan, a Democrat in Alaska's House of Representatives, said he's not so sure about Palin's chumminess with the industry.

"They don't have big color pictures of Sarah Palin in the board rooms of BP, ConocoPhillips or Exxon," Doogan said. "If she's in the pocket of big oil, she's kept it a pretty good secret."

(This is wry understatement. If ExxonMobil has Sarah Palin's picture up in its boardroom, it's tacked to a dart-board.)

Doogan said he agrees with Palin's oil and gas policies, as do many in the state where the state budget and economy rely on oil production. But the partnership between state government and the industry is not necessarily a happy one, he said.

"It's a good partnership if you consider having to sue your partner constantly to pay you a good thing," Doogan said, referring to frequent litigation between the state and industry over taxes and other issues.

The article runs through the conspicuous energy policy successes she's had despite her short tenure, often after vigorous "head-knocking" of the major oil companies, and always with complete public transparency (in contrast to her predecessors).

Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy fellow at Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, said Palin represents a departure from past Alaskan politicians in how she has motivated the oil industry.

"She's taken much more of a 'knocking-heads' approach," Jaffe said. "She has stood up to the big players when she didn't like the process, and I don't think it's played well with the industry."

But there's no doubt Palin is clearly pro-oil production, said Robin West, chairman of energy strategy firm PFC Energy.

But her record, however, also suggests that being pro-production doesn't necessarily mean she's reliably pro-industry, West said.

"The agenda of Alaska and the agenda of Exxon are not always the same," West said. "They may both want more production but it may not be under the same terms."

There is no magic pony. My kids will be parents, and maybe grandparents, before we're wholly weaned from fossil fuels. We need to conserve; we need alternative sources.

But in the meantime, we still need to drill now, drill here, and drill smartly. Sarah Palin gets this. Better yet, she will make it happen — which in large part means "letting it happen," but in a smart way, making the market forces work for the taxpaying public and keeping everything thoroughly disinfected with the sunshine of public scrutiny.

Beldar's plea to Sen. McCain for the coming week: In your acceptance speech, use that multi-media capability to show video, plus maps, that will make abundantly clear to everyone watching just what a tiny portion of unexceptional mudflats will be disturbed when we drill in ANWR. Explain that your fabulous and knowledgeable running mate has opened your eyes to the fact that "pristine" doesn't always mean "precious," and that responsible development doesn't mean "plunder." And then announce that for the rest of the campaign and then from Day 1 forward of the McCain-Palin administration, Sarah Palin will be your energy czar, pounding on congressional doors to make this happen as part of an overall multi-faceted energy plan.

Not a messiah, not even from Harvard, but the one (lower-case) we've been waiting for

Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard have both been Palin prophets, both online and as television pundits. Now they have up a pair of punchy, persuasive online pieces worth your while: Barnes' Providential Palin and Kristol's Let Palin Be Palin.

Barnes clearly gets the big picture:

Republicans desperately need younger leaders. To paraphrase Democrats, the torch must be passed to a new generation. There are a number of impressive young leaders in Congress — Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, to name three in the House — but they've been leapfrogged: If McCain loses, Palin will be the hope of the future. If he wins, she'll actually be the future.

Meanwhile, Kristol is focused on the near-term, but with equal clarity:

... The campaign may be tempted to overreact when one rash sentence or foolish comment by Palin from 10 or 15 years ago is dragged up by Democratic opposition research and magnified by a credulous and complicit media.

The McCain campaign will have to keep its cool. It will have to provide facts and context, and to hit back where appropriate. But it cannot become obsessed with playing defense. It should allow Palin to deal with the charges directly and resist the temptation to try to shield her from the media. Palin is potentially a huge asset to McCain. He took the gamble — wisely, we think — of putting her on the ticket. McCain's choice of Palin was McCain being McCain. Now his campaign will have to let Palin be Palin.

Plus, I'm tickled by this week's cover:

In my case, at least, the answer is: "Yes, she's who I've been waiting for, at least since the Fred Thompson campaign failed to launch."

An indirect graphical indication of public interest in Sarah Palin

I'm not modest, but my blog's traffic is, and I'm okay with that. My normal traffic, as measured by Sitemeter, generally runs between 1-2k page views per day, for which I'm genuinely grateful. On days when InstaPundit or Hugh Hewitt or someone on The Corner or my friend Patterico links something I've written, I may get three or four times that much traffic. And on the very best days of the 2004 election campaign, when I was blogging fast and furiously about the SwiftVets and Rathergate, I occasionally would hit something like 10-15k page views.

The announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain's VP selection on August 29 resulted in a jump in traffic that I believe accurately reflects, if not in any precise mathematical relationship, the internet-viewing public's level of interest: As the graph at right indicates (click for full-size pop-up), I've received over 57k page views today, almost all of that in the last 14 hours. This was far more than double my previous traffic record.

That's pretty cool. Thank you.