“If what Barack Obama released is really a valid birth certificate that answers all the questions about this controversy, why is the Obama campaign in attack mode on Jerome Corsi’s bestselling book?” asks WorldNet CEO Joseph Farah in a promotional email.

The Obama campaign is selling tee-shirts and coffee mugs that bear a smiling photo of the president above the words “Made in the USA.” There is an image of the birth certificate on the reverse side.

“[Obama] fears [this book] is his undoing,” explains Farah. “Do you really think the $1 billion Obama campaign cares about selling a few coffee mugs? Give me a break. This is an effort to derail media attention from a successful book and media tour that is focusing renewed attention on his ineligibility for office.”

Like WorldNet, the Obama campaign is having fun promoting its product on the post-birth certificate birther wave.

BarackObama.com sent out an ask this morning with the subject line: “You’ll like this.”

“Let me introduce you to Jerome Corsi,” says the email. “This week he released a new book that the publisher says will be a bestseller ‘of historic proportions.’ The title is ‘Where’s the Birth Certificate?’ – yes, really.

“Corsi’s work is a greatest-hits reel of delusions, ranging from 9/11 conspiracies to claiming that there is an infinite supply of oil in the Earth’s core. In 2008, he published a book about Barack Obama claiming, among other things, that he (a) is a secret Muslim; (b) is secretly anti-military; (c) secretly dealt drugs; and (d) secretly supported terrorist actions when he was eight years old. So many secrets.”

“The only thing we can do is laugh at it — and make sure as many other people as possible are in on the joke.”

Limited edition tee shirts available for early donors!

Colorado has been marked out by the Obama reelection campaign as a key battleground on which the campaign intends to dedicate significant resources. It was also a major midterm election Tea Party state last year where GOP “rising star” politician Cory Gardner dabbled in birtherism on the stump in the fourth district.

The Corsi book tour will likely arrive here just ahead of the Obama campaign grassroots army any day now. Look for competing billboards in different colors with different fine print that say the exact same thing: “Where’s the Birth Certificate?”

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

WND asked Noory how he could be a serious candidate for president when “Coast to Coast AM” has been known for its emphasis on UFOs, ancient Egypt and the supernatural.

“The current crop of political candidates looks out of touch, saying nothing new or genuine. By 2012 people are going to be saying, ‘We cannot continue down the path we have been going as it will lead us only back to the familiar dead end we now see in Congress and the White House,’” he said.

Will that fly in a debate?

Conspiracy shows have never wanted for content, but the Obama presidency has provided particularly strong material — Jeff Rense, another late-night weirdness expert, has probably done more interviews with Obama conspiracy theorists than anyone else.

I decided right there and then that [WorldNetDaily] would no longer sponsor CPAC as long as an arrogant, know-it-all wannabe like De Pasquale was running it. When others confronted De Pasquale on her ill manners, unprofessionalism and condescension, she finally wrote me an e-mail. But it was hardly the letter of apology one might expect under the circumstances. She explained that she was “just answering questions from the media.”

Apparently, De Pasquale and the CPAC leadership are more concerned about pleasing the media than their long-time sponsors and speakers – even people like me who are under siege from the left, the soft-right and the media establishment.

The funny thing is that Farah got a shout-out from the CPAC stage from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who bragged about getting a relative to read WND, and that birthers, while denied most stages at the conference, were not hard to find. Henke laughed it off.

“Some of it may be colorably ‘opinion,’” Henke said to TWI, “but I certainly did not have ‘multiple appearances, on MSNBC. I was on once. I think the biggest story in that is his claim that Democrats spent more on WND than Republicans. Oh, really?”

Anyway, here’s the site for Farah’s own Taking America Back convention, to be held in Florida in September. Warning: Music.

“I really want to know the answer to this question,” said Farah, “and the people in that room really wanted to know the answer to this question. And I’m not going to let some Republican board of political correctness or some media board of political correctness decide that I can’t ask the question.”

As we talked, Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News joined the conversation and followed up on Farah’s claim that the “birther” controversy had been bad for WND.

“The birth certificate theory is really popular on the internet,” said Bunch.

“Well, it’s popular because of us,” said Farah. “We essentially created it, didn’t we? That wasn’t a decision made because there was a constituency out there waiting for this, [or] it was a way to make money. Those people had to be found.”

Farah suggested that WND had kept a brush fire going, evidenced by legislation in several states (not of it has yet passed) that demands proof of citizenship from presidential candidates. “[Obama]‘s going to have to produce it if he wants to run for re-election,” said Farah.

He added that the proof-of-citizenship bill introduced in Congress by Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) won’t do the trick, because it allows facsimiles — like Obama’s certificate of live birth, available online — to prove citizenship. “The Posey bill is flawed,” said Farah.

Still, Farah was more optimistic than pessimistic about the resilience of the “birther” subculture, pointing out that Obama had criticized those who “question my citizenship” at his National Prayer Breakfast speech.

“He’s even talking about it now!” said Farah.

After he introduced the evening’s closing entertainment — a film titled “Generation Zero” — Breitbart walked outside to the convention hall. There, I heard Breitbart criticizing Farah, and briefly talked to him about it before I noticed that WorldNetDaily’s Chelsea Schilling was already talking to him, holding up a voice recorder. I backed up to allow her to continue her interview, which consisted of questions on why Breitbart didn’t think Obama’s citizenship was a legitimate issue.

“It’s self-indulgent, it’s narcissistic, it’s a losing issue,” Breitbart told Schilling. “It’s a losing situation. If you don’t have the frigging evidence — raising the question? You can do that to Republicans all day long. You have to disprove that you’re a racist! Forcing them to disprove something is a nightmare.”

“Wouldn’t you say,” asked Schilling, “in this case, that Farah is asking Obama to prove something rather than his disprove it?”

Breitbart rejected the premise. “When has a president ever been asked to prove his citizenship?”

After a few minutes Breitbart ended the conversation and Schilling started interviewing Tea Partiers about the speech, finding a little less skepticism. (I found some Tea Partiers, like Rita Grace of Virginia, who said they didn’t appreciate Farah’s speech.) I spotted Farah and asked him if his speech had been approved by Tea Party Nation.

“They asked me to speak,” said Farah. “They didn’t ask me, ‘What do you want to speak about?’ No, this operates like a free and open society, not like the kind of Marxist society you would apparently like to be a journalist for.”

I told Farah that his speech was getting negative attention already, and that Breitbart, who’d taken the stage after him, had criticized the “birther” parts of the speech. Farah shook his head and walked over to Breitbart in what seemed like an attempt to debunk my question.

“Andrew is my friend,” said Farah. “He has the right to disagree, and he has the right to say anything to a socialist newspaper that he wants. And if he wants to criticize his friend to you, and he’s dumb enough to do that…”

Breitbart raised his eyebrows. “I’m dumb to do what?”

“Criticize your friend to this socialist newspaper.”

“I was talking to her,” said Breitbart, pointing to Schilling. “I was talking to you. And I was saying that I disagreed on the birther stuff.”

“OK, well, did you know that Dave Weigel from The Washington Independent was”–

“I was talking to her,” said Breitbart. “She was asking me if I thought it was wise to bring it up, and I said, no. We have a lot of strong arguments to be making, and that is a primary argument. That is an argument for the primaries that did not take hold. The arguments that these people right here are making are substantive arguments. The elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts were all won not on birther, but on substance. And to apply to this group of people the concept that they’re all obsessed with the birth certificate, when it’s not a winning issue–”

“It is a winning issue!”

“It’s not a winning issue.”

“It is! It becomes even more of a winning issue when the press abrogates its responsibility–”

“You don’t recognize it as a fundamentally controversial issue that forces a unified group of people to have to break into different parts? It is a schism of the highest order.”

“Nothing exposes the president’s–”

“Then prove it!”

“The press isn’t asking the question–”

“Prove it!”

“Prove what?”

“Prove your case.”

“I should prove, what, a birth certificate that may or may not exist?” Farah had gotten irritated. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t even understand the fundamental tenets of what journalism is about, Andrew. It’s not about proving things. It’s about asking questions and seeking truth.”

Breitbart tensed up after that insult. “Right.”

“I know you’re not a journalist, so that’s fine. But don’t diminish people who’ve been doing this for 35 years.”

“So you’re going to go on record saying that I’m not a journalist?”

“Are you? I’ve never heard you claim to be. Are you?”

“I’ll let it be answered by you.”

“Well, I knew Drudge didn’t consider himself a journalist, so I assumed that you were. … I don’t know, I’m not trying to insult you.”

“You did.”

At that point, Judson Phillips — who had spotted a very small crowd around us — walked into the fray and tried to simmer everyone down with a joke.

“I can give you absolutely conclusive and definitive proof that Obama’s birth certificate does not exist. How else do you explain why Joe Biden is vice president?”

That more or less ended the conversation — Farah moved on, and agreed to talk more about why he and WorldNetDaily continued to pursue stories on Obama’s citizenship. The citizenship issue had stuck around and taken off, he said, “because of us.” He ran stories asking questions about the issue — including stories that were quickly debunked — because the rest of the media wasn’t asking the questions.

“Do you think this has made my life easier, doing this?” asked Farah. “I used to be on TV all the time. I haven’t been on Fox News once since I started talking about this.”

Asked whether he thought his speech created any problems for Sarah Palin — prompting reporters to ask why she patronized a convention with rhetoric like this — Farah rejected the premise.

“Sarah Palin is a big girl,” he said. “She can take care of herself. I have a lot of confidence that she’ll take care of herself well. … My objective is not to get Sarah Palin elected or something. My job as a journalist is to seek the truth.”

Update: Here’s audio of the Farah-Breitbart dispute:

Click to play

Fox News
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World Net Daily

WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah is also speaking at the convention; other reporters may get access to a “press room” if the venue “would be willing to provide” one.

In the statement, organizers finally answer some of the attacks they’ve received from angry Tea Party activists and former sponsors.

Between last February and the present, Tea Party Nation has seen members come and go.  We have tried to deal fairly with our present and former relationships, however, not without some criticism.  This criticism has been unfortunate and we believe, unwarranted.  However, it is the policy of Tea Party Nation not to focus on past challenges, but to stay focused on the task of advancing the conservative cause and defeating liberalism.

With that in mind, we will not be making any comments regarding former members.

The news that Palin is speaking at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, however, protects her from a little of the criticism that she’s skipping established political events because they won’t pay her. The SRLC conference doesn’t pay its speakers and is seen as must-attend run-up to the presidential primaries.

To be asked to speak at the first national tea party convention is a great honor for me. I believe the tea party movement is a powerful and righteous social and political force that can help take America back from the grips of out-of-control and tyrannical central government. It’s also a personal privilege for me to be on the same bill with Gov. Sarah Palin and so many other distinguished leaders and friends such as Judge Roy Moore, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Phil Valentine.

Two months ago Farah appeared on the same stage as Bachmann and other conservative House Republicans to promote WND’s “pink slip” campaign against Congress, and political reporters pretty much ignored it. And WND has sponsored CPAC in the past. But CPAC has explicitly ruled out a “birther” forum at this year’s event, and some Republican activists have called for conservatives to cut ties with the birth certificate and conspiracy-obsessed WND. And here you’ll have Sarah Palin, giving her first political speech in months, on the same stage as Joseph Farah.

Wikipedia’s profile page for Farah has dubbed him “homophobic,” a “conspiracy theorist,” “white supremacist,” a “proud member of the Ku Klux Klan,” a “religious nutcase” and “a pioneer in the political uses of psychedelics.”

“He also enjoys chowing down on babies once in a while,” stated one Aug. 7, 2008, entry.

The news value of this is hard to ascertain; the goal WND has in promoting it, harder still. The humor value is, however, very much apparent.

Still, the big takeaway from WND’s list is that it really did manage to catapult stories from the web to Fox News. For example:

WND was the news agency that broke the first major story on Obama’s “green” jobs czar Van Jones and it was the dogged reporting of WND’s Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein that helped bring down the first high-ranking member of the Obama administration.

I’d agree with that. Few people admit to reading WND but there’s no doubt that its relentless reports on Jones, coupled with Gateway Pundit’s blog posts, provided the grist for Glenn Beck’s attacks.