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'Deep Throat' a hit on Amazon

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Steven Musil
During the Watergate investigation, Bob Woodward's mysterious source "Deep Throat" encouraged the Washington Post reporter to "follow the money."

That directive is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago, but now we have online retail giant Amazon.com to help us see where the money is going. As news was breaking on Tuesday that W. Mark Felt, a former No. 2 man at the FBI, was the source who helped Woodward and fellow Post reporter Carl Bernstein, the reporters' book on the scandal was climbing the best-seller list. On Tuesday, "All the President's Men" was listed at No. 816, but by Wednesday the book was sitting at No. 35. The 1976 movie based on the book and starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford was also a hit, climbing to the No. 16 spot in DVD sales.

Meanwhile, President Nixon's memoirs, "RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon," wasn't faring so well, stuck at No. 79,803.

Amazon was of little help in judging whether the recent revelation had sparked renewed interest in the 1972 pornographic film "Deep Throat," which yielded Felt's alias. The retail giant has a long-standing policy of not offering "X-rated" material for sale on its site, although it does offer "unrated" adult movies.