Conservative women hit by pranksters on Amazon.com

Chris Moody
·Political Reporter

Several high-profile Republican women have become targets of "cybervandalism" on Amazon.com, where Internet pranksters have tagged an assortment of scandalous items--things like sex videos, dildos and pornographic movies--with their names on the online marketplace.

Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and the former Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell each have items attached to their names in the "Amazon.com tag cloud" that, to say the least, weren't put there by their supporters.

O'Donnell's page, first reported by The Daily Beast's David Graham, mocks her advocacy against pre-marital sex and masturbation in the 1990s. Instead of displaying O'Donnell's new book, Troublemaker, on the page of items tagged with her name, Amazon features several sex toys, the DVDs for the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin and The Last American Virgin, and fertility pills for men. And of course, in tribute to her "I'm not a witch" ad, there's a witch costume on sale for about $25.

Photos after the jump.

Amazon isn't responsible for placing the products on the pages. The company allows its users to "tag" items, which is supposed to make it easier for people to find the products they want to buy. The system is efficient, but it also opens the door for just about anyone to "Amazon bomb" a public figure with crude products.

On Bachmann and Palin's tagged pages, books and campaign memorabilia mingle alongside links to Japanese sex videos, vibrators and medicine for irritable bowel syndrome.

At the moment, the phenomenon appears to afflict only conservatives. Prominent Democratic women, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and First Lady Michelle Obama are not tagged with similar products. (Although Clinton's page bizarrely includes a speaker cable.)

But one conservative man has been targeted. Rick Santorum, the Republican presidential candidate and former senator from Pennsylvania, has already seen his name become a cruel joke on Google because of his anti-gay positions. On Amazon, items tagged with Santorum's name include guides to anal sex, lubricant, and a VHS tape of the Jerry Springer episode, "I Married a Horse! The Show about Real Animal Lovers!" (Santorum at one time equated gay sex to bestiality.)

Amazon, which posts its guidelines on employing tags on its site, did not return a request for comment.

Below is an image The Ticket captured from Amazon's tagged pages: