A campaign spokesman acknowledged that the official site of the Bush-Cheney campaign has been rejecting requests from outside North America since Monday morning. “The measure was taken for security reasons,” campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel told news services, but did not elaborate on that statement.

A dynamically updating chart of site performance for GeorgeWBush.com from different points is available here.

Surprisingly, none of the coverage that we have seen to date has considered the possibility that it might be a well executed scheme aimed at increasing international awareness of the site.

The “calculated indifference ploy”, has previously been popularised by the fictional character Reginald Perrin, commercialised by the publishing industry who adopted the moto “If you want to sell a book, first get it banned”, and deployed by generations of parents who learned “If you really want to get something done, deny your children permission to do it”.

Many thousands of people living outside the US who were previously unaware of the site are now earnestly seeking out ways of accessing it.