When the mighty fall low, the low make T-shirts

Sarcastic slogans and T-shirts make fine bedfellows—and never so much as when those ironic sayings allude to a politico's sexcapades. After all, who doesn't yearn for the chance to wear their snark on their proverbial sleeve with a "Zippergate '98," size medium?

These days, no sooner does a sex scandal splatter all over the tabloids' front pages than Internet entrepreneurs get to work churning out the memorabilia. (To wit: A quick search on Google already unearths nearly 2,000 Eliot Spitzer–inspired "Client 9" products.)

Political analyst Jon Delano says scandal-skewering activewear is just an extension of an age-old American pastime—the smear campaign. "It's as American as apple pie," he says. It goes back to Grover Cleveland. When old "Uncle Jumbo" was running for president in 1884, his opponents accused him of having a child out of wedlock, cooking up this little ditty: "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha." Too bad the age of mass production hadn't dawned yet. "That would fit perfectly on a T-shirt," says Delano.

Professor Peter Manning, author of the essay "What Is a T-shirt? Codes, Chronotypes, and Everyday Objects," says gossip sheet–inspired political wear is the result of perceived isolation—a society of strangers looking to connect. "Those things help to set an identity fairly quickly. It's a call for a response," he says.

So, if these tees are just a cottony cry for attention, why do political sex scandals inspire such manufacturing mania? Are folks out to make a buck or a statement? Radar talked to some of the more recent pioneers of the fabric frontier about why they chose to let their fibers do the talking.