6 years ago 
 
 (CNN) - A new book, now number six on the New York Times' Best Sellers list, is putting the so-called "birther" issue back on the national stage. 
 
 "Where's the Birth Certificate?" by Jerome Corsi, which debuted on the list out Sunday, argues President Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen and therefore cannot be president. 
 
 
 
 "Corsi demonstrates conclusively that no legal authority has ever verified Obama's legal eligibility to be president," the book reads. 
 
 Corsi also wrote "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command," a 2004 book about Sen. John Kerry that focused on the "Swift Boat" television ads. 
 
 The "birther" controversy was front-and-center earlier this year, as billionaire businessman and real estate mogul Donald Trump repeatedly discussed the issue while considering a run for the White House. President Obama ultimately released the long-form version of his birth certificate that shows he was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. Soon after, Trump announced he would not make a bid for the GOP presidential nomination. 
 
 Despite the president's actions, 17 percent of Americans think the president was definitely or probably not born in the U.S., according to a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll taken after the president's announcement. 
 
 The survey showed a drop from the March poll numbers when 25 percent of those surveyed said the president was definitely or probably not born in America. ||||| Joseph Farah and Jerome Corsi have some pretty interesting beliefs. They believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya, not there’s no proof Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.* They also believe Hearst Corp. and a writer it employs ought to pay them hundreds of millions of dollars for making fun of them for believing that first part. 
 
 Farah, the CEO of WorldNetDaily.com, and Corsi, author of “Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be President,” have filed suit against Hearst, Esquire magazine and writer Mark Warren over a satirical article that they say defamed them and damaged their business interests. They’re seeking compensatory damages of $100 million and punitive damages of $20 million, plus legal costs. [Update: As a commenter points out, that's only for one of the five counts; the full amount sought totals more than $285 million.] 
 
 Warren published the article on May 18, 2011, just after Obama released his long-form birth certificate, answering the doubts of Corsi and other so-called birthers. An Onion-style parody, it was headlined “BREAKING! Jerome Corsi’s Birther Book Pulled From Shelves!” 
 
 As often happens with satire on the internet, the article was received my many readers (or non-reading reTweeters) as straight news, forcing Esquire to add an update “for those who didn’t figure it out yet”: 
 
 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. 
 
 In their suit, Farah and Corsi say this update itself was “another actionable attack on Plaintiffs and exhibited the malice of Defendants toward the Plaintiffs.” The malicious intent that that allege spawned the article succeeded, they say, in interfering with their ability to sell books through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Tower and other retailers. The plaintiffs also say that Warren’s parody exposed them to “extreme ridicule in the community where they reside and where their works are viewed and read.” I don’t see Warren challenging them on that point. 
 
 The full complaint is below. I’m awaiting comment from an Esquire spokesman. Update: The spokesman had this statement: 
 
 We have not seen the complaint. The blog post spoke for itself. It was satire, an age-old and completely legitimate form of expression. Additionally, the piece was tagged as ‘humor,’ as are all of our frequent satire posts on Esquire’s Politics Blog. That was not lost on our observant readers. 
 
 *Corrected to reflect response from Joseph Farah in the comments below. ||||| In a stunning development one day after the release of Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President, by Dr. Jerome Corsi, World Net Daily Editor and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Farah has announced plans to recall and pulp the entire 200,000 first printing run of the book, as well as announcing an offer to refund the purchase price to anyone who has already bought either a hard copy or electronic download of the book. 
 
 In an exclusive interview, a reflective Farah, who wrote the book's foreword and also published Corsi's earlier best-selling work, Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak out Against John Kerry and Capricorn One: NASA, JFK, and the Great "Moon Landing" Cover-Up, said that after much serious reflection, he could not go forward with the project. "I believe with all my heart that Barack Obama is destroying this country, and I will continue to stand against his administration at every turn, but in light of recent events, this book has become problematic, and contains what I now believe to be factual inaccuracies," he said this morning. "I cannot in good conscience publish it and expect anyone to believe it." 
 
 When asked if he had any plans to publish a corrected version of the book, he said cryptically, "There is no book." Farah declined to comment on his discussions of the matter with Corsi. 
 
 A source at WND, who requested that his name be withheld, said that Farah was "rip-shit" when, on April 27, President Obama took the extraordinary step of personally releasing his "long-form" birth certificate, thus resolving the matter of Obama's legitimacy for "anybody with a brain." 
 
 "He called up Corsi and really tore him a new one," says the source. "I mean, we'll do anything to hurt Obama, and erase his memory, but we don't want to look like fucking idiots, you know? Look, at the end of the day, bullshit is bullshit." 
 
 Corsi, who graduated from Harvard and is a professional journalist, could not be reached for comment. 
 
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 UPDATE, 12:25 p.m., for those who didn't figure it out yet, and the many on Twitter for whom it took a while: 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. That's why we committed satire in the matter of the Corsi book. Hell, even the president has a sense of humor about it all. Some more serious reporting from us on this whole "birther" phenomenon here, here, and here.
– We’ve seen the long form certificate, but the birther issue just won’t die. Author Jerome Corsi’s new book Where’s the Birth Certificate? debuts at number six on the New York Times’ Best Sellers list out Sunday, according to CNN. The book argues that President Obama’s citizenship has never been verified by a legal authority. Despite the White House release of the president's Certificate of Live Birth, 17% of Americans think he was definitely or probably not born in the US, according to a recent poll taken after Obama's birth certificate announcement.