In late April, when Barack Obama released the long-form version of his birth certificate, he was wearily realistic about his prospects of ending conspiracy theories about his eligiblity to be US president. "I know that there's going to be a segment of people for which, no matter what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest," he said.
But it is unlikely he realised just how stubborn the "birthers" would be. That became clear this week, when it emerged that a new book by Jerome R Corsi has entered the New York Times's bestseller list at No 6. Its title? Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President.
Of course, it might seem ridiculous to publish this when we know exactly where the birth certificate is – it is even available on mugs and T-shirts from BarackObama.com – but that would be to underestimate the bullishness of Corsi's publisher, Joseph Farah. Farah edits rightwing website WorldNetDaily.com, on which he argued that the release of the birth certificate raised "dozens of other questions . . . concerning Barack Obama's parentage, his adoption, [and] his citizenship status throughout his life".
If you consider the subtext of this whole debate to be ugly racial paranoia, well, you're certainly not alone. Instead of removing their bumper stickers, birthers have been amending them by hand to read "Where's the 'REAL' birth certificate?". And a CNN poll held after Obama's press conference showed 17% of Americans still believed the president was definitely or probably not born in the US. In fact, as the days go on, the birther debate looks more and more like a zombie: dogged, determinedly unpleasant and just refusing to die.
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