GOP flubs attempt to counter 'lude' pranksters

Not satisfied with URL-shortening services like Tinyurl.com and Bit.ly, which are evidently not conservative enough in the way they shorten Internet addresses, the Republican Party has launched its own.

GOP.am's motto is "making long URLs ... conservative." But unlike most other address-shortening services, GOP.am doesn't just take you to a Web site via a short address -- it puts the Web site underneath a banner that features the GOP logo.

And that makes for some interesting opportunities for anti-Republican pranksters -- such as placing the GOP logo above some very non-Republican (or, as some would have it, some very Republican) bondage sex sites.

According to Wired.com, that's exactly what happened on Monday, the first day that GOP.am was operational, when pranksters used the URL-shortening service to put the GOP's logo on Web sites that embarrassed the GOP so badly that it temporarily pulled the service offline.

Wired reported Tuesday morning that GOP.am was offline, but as of Monday afternoon, the Web site appeared to be operational again. And it continues to place the Republican logo on any Web site that browsers visit via a GOP.am shortened address.

A disclaimer at the bottom of the screen warns, "If you use [GOP.am] for spamming, illegal purposes or to promote lude [sic] content, your GOP.AM URL will be disabled."

(Unless the Web site has a specific ban on promoting quaaludes, we imagine the webmaster meant "lewd.")

And with such a tempting target at hand, Raw Story couldn't help but create one link to, ahem, an "embarrassing" Web site for the GOP. (Don't worry -- we've kept it safe for work.)

So here it is: "The Demise of the Republican Party," as framed by the GOP logo...