A short blog entry on using the traffic data at stats.grok.se for an interesting purpose - comparing the relative impact of short-lived political issues.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/ayers-attacks-piquing-curiosity-but.h...
A rather sharp demonstration of how short-lived that interest can be, using a British example not an American one:
http://stats.grok.se/en/200809/Ruth_Kelly