Jerome Corsi Book Satirized By Esquire, Joseph Farah Reportedly Angered

What happens when a satire is taken seriously?

Following the release of Jerome Corsi's birther book, "Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President," Esquire posted on their website a satirical piece, "BREAKING: Jerome Corsi's Birther Book Pulled from Shelves!" The problem? The satire was so believable that within hours, Esquire had to add an update clarifying that the piece was not, in fact, true and now Esquire may face legal actions.

In light of President Obama revealing his long-form birth certificate, many consider Corsi's book a rather moot point with an outdated argument. But, as HuffPost's Jason Linkins argues about birthers, "They are only limited by their imagination, and they've so far managed to create an entire alternate reality, so why stop now?"

Yet, Esquire managed to convince a major audience that World Net Daily Editor and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Farah had pulled the book from shelves after telling Esquire, "I cannot in good conscience publish it and expect anyone to believe it." To be clear, Farah never actually spoke to Esquire. Farah also never actually offered a refund to anyone who had already bought the book. It was a joke. Except that instead of laughing, Farah is reportedly considering “legal options” against the magazine, according to The Daily Caller:

“I have never spoken to anyone from Esquire. Never uttered these words or anything remotely resembling them to anyone. It is a complete fabrication,” Farah told The Daily Caller. “The book is selling briskly. I am 100 percent behind it.”

Esquire has posted an update to their piece, a segment of which stated:

We committed satire this morning to point out the problems with selling and marketing a book that has had its core premise and reason to exist gutted by the news cycle, several weeks in advance of publication. Are its author and publisher chastened? Well, no. They double down, and accuse the President of the United States of perpetrating a fraud on the world by having released a forged birth certificate. Not because this claim is in any way based on reality, but to hold their terribly gullible audience captive to their lies, and to sell books. This is despicable, and deserves only ridicule.

It was a joke, but who's going to have the last laugh?

Comments

[AntonioSaucedo]

08:08 PM on 06/01/2011

People love conspiracies, especially if they have a religious mentality, meaning believing stuff with no evidence or evidence to the contrary. The fact that someone can believe that the devil is out to get you will believe anything, like, Obama not being eligible to be president. I'm not saying all of those buying Corsi's book are religious, for I'm sure some are buying it for his very good prose. I hope the book is placed in the science fiction section where it belongs, next to the ones on UFOs.

[Mark Gillar]

01:56 AM on 05/30/2011

According to Corsi, Obama's long form birth certificate contains "kerning" on sections that would have been typed in on a manual 1961 typewriter. For the record, on a typewriter, the spaces would have been the exact same between all letters. Therefore, there are parts of Obama's long form birth certificate that had to be typed with a computer.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/markgillar/2011/05/28/jerome-corsi--wheres-the-birth-certificate

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/markgillar/2011/05/28/jerome-corsi--wheres-the-birth-certificate

[tuberider]

07:47 AM on 05/22/2011

Esquire used to have credibility. Now ESQUIRE is the joke.

[Soter]

01:59 PM on 05/20/2011

The released BC is a crude forgery- the birth order number is out of sequence, a scan of the doc would have one uniform pixelization, but here we have differing pixels... the words dont 'bend' as they should on a scan of a creased folding page or doc in book,...the word "African" was not what was used back then on US docs...A "the" at the bottom is mispelled, there is no footprint....More things are wrong with it than are right; releasing this thing is a felony and an impeachable offense.
Print this, huh?

[Soter]

05:07 PM on 05/20/2011

Also, the individual who made the forgery may have just been identified. Stay tuned..

[TheWanderer]

12:21 AM on 05/21/2011

Dude, nobody's listening.

[America 20xy]

04:31 PM on 05/19/2011

I haven't really studied the birth certificate issue in depth (mainly because there's so many issues out in the open that show Obama is a puppet war monger, civil liberties attacker like Bush that you don't really need to explore his birth place to prove the man shouldn't be in office) so I'm not going to speak on that, however in this particular development I hope Corsi and WND sue Esquire for every penny that rag is worth. A "spoof" or "satire" involving real people has to either label the article as such or present such an absurd story that nobody could reasonably believe it. (Like bombing Libya and supporting rebels that are carrying out genocide of black Africans is somehow "humanitarian"...oh wait, the media hasn't admitted to the baselessness of that absurd story yet). This article claimed direct quotes and Esquire didn't put up the satire notice until after the article sat alone for quite a while. The only reason the forced acknowledgment of satire is making headlines now is because WND is threatening the suit. Sorry Obama Corporate Media Apologists...again you showed your hand.

[key2thecup]

03:53 PM on 05/19/2011

A typewriter doesnt hit the paper as precise as a computer printer, why did he come out earlier (year or so) ago and say here this is my certificate there is no other one. And after the apparent criticism he then comes out and says ooops, here's my real certificate ha ha.

[Genosse Joe]

12:15 PM on 05/19/2011

The simple test resolving the question about validity of Obama's birth certificate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58vFN2FFu2U&feature=player_embedded

[p c r]

12:30 PM on 05/19/2011

You do realize that the 2nd BC used as an example is never shown unless it is blurred, don't you? You should also note that the letters have exactly the same spacing on both certificates. The people who made this video are playing fast and loose with the facts. You are exceedingly gullible to fall for this.

[Genosse Joe]

01:05 PM on 05/19/2011

Typewriters can not possibly move letter into a "private" space of the previous letter in one case and not to do it in another case depending on what was the previous letter. But computers do it routinely since 1990.

And yet, we observe that phenomena on the document supposedly prepared in 1961.

Your explanation? Time travel?

[somewhatodd]

10:31 AM on 05/19/2011

conservatives constantly create and recreate their own religion. any and all evidence contradicting their creation is seen as an opportunity to demonstrate their faith.

[satanlite]

09:43 AM on 05/19/2011

Ask the dopey Republicans who take Stephen Colbert seriously.

[TeaLady005]

11:02 PM on 05/18/2011

Esquire has zero credibility now. They should print a photo of a great big EGG on the cover to match the one on their faces.

[TwinX]

06:50 AM on 05/19/2011

There was a 'humor' tag on the original article, so...the egg is on Corsi and Farah's faces.

Again.

Oh, and on yours, too.

Again.

[Genosse Joe]

12:18 PM on 05/19/2011

"humor" tag was added later when questions started to pour in.

From now on every Esquire material will be suspected for being another "humor" item. They will not be taken seriously.

[LamAng]

07:28 PM on 05/18/2011

To Mr. Joseph Farah, when the white supremacist comes, your kind wont be far from there list! You are not white! Take a look in the mirror you arrogant sob. You are such and id*t to be with this kind of people. Do you need to conform so bad?

[Genosse Joe]

10:06 PM on 05/18/2011

Who is white supremacist here? Is is our half white Golpher in Chief raised by his "typical white grandma"?

PS Google "kerning birth certificate" and you will find stories and videos demonstrating that the recently presented birth certificate is a forgery because form was filled using modern computer and not the typewriter from 1961.

[TwinX]

07:06 AM on 05/19/2011

All your little self proclaimed 'experts' are looking at a *scan* of a document.

They can jibber jabber all they want about 'layers' and 'pixels' but the scan is irrelevant in terms of evdence.

The *paper* copy the scan was made of is what's important. It has an impeccable provenenance and chain of custody, and just like the COLB released 3 years ago, is triple verified by the State of Hawaii.

You have nothing, and I think you know it. I think you've known it for a long, long time, but you have invested too much in this smear to quietly slip away and attempt to re-establish yourself in the reality based community.

Perhaps you were never part of it to begin with?

[LamAng]

07:08 AM on 05/19/2011

Can you even see what you are writing? A half white raised by his "typical white grandma" became a white supremacist?! Do you even know what is a white supremacist? Try and google it!

[Genosse Joe]

07:05 PM on 05/18/2011

When satire mistaken seriously book sales jump. Free publicity from opponent is the best.

[JQP 1970]

12:52 PM on 05/19/2011

When egg roll ordered shrimp not on plate. Noodle on side with all lunch specials.

[Jim8]

07:02 PM on 05/18/2011

Jerome Corsi's book should be seen as satire pointed at the birthers

[Olderandwiser55]

12:33 AM on 05/21/2011

I thought it was!

[LamAng]

06:46 PM on 05/18/2011

Funny they can say any thing they want and they can't take this one.

[BlackJAC]

06:12 PM on 05/18/2011

I'm reminded when the guy who draws that Mallard Fillmore cartoon spent the better part of a week explaining to his fanbase that the parody of it featured in America: The Book by the Daily Show gang wasn't real.