Esquire's defense, rather, would be that it published the parody believing in good faith no one could reasonably understand it as a true report. The speed with which it posted the disclaimer that it was satire--the equivalent of a correction to an actual false report--would be a strong piece of evidence in its favor.
As to "restraint of trade," that accusation presupposes that the Esquire parody was a guise for an anticompetitive conspiracy to harm WND's publishing business. A judge and jury--unlike WND and its readers--would reject such a theory unless there was evidence to support it.
But WND doesn't need a lawsuit, for it has already won. "The book is selling briskly," WND quotes Farah as saying, and the free publicity from Esquire surely isn't hurting. Esquire's journalistic reputation has been tarnished, too--to the point where we'd be hard-pressed to say it's any more lustrous than WND's. Writing good satire isn't as easy as it looks.
On the other hand, the Obama 2012 campaign is having as much fun with this as humanly possible.
President Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign today started selling “Made in the USA” t-shirts featuring images of both President Obama and the long-form birth certificate he released copies of last month.
“Wear your support for this campaign with an official Made in the USA T-shirt,” his website advertises. Donate $25 or more today and we'll send you your limited-edition shirt.
Coffee-mugs are also available.
“Remember ‘fight the smears’ from the 2008 campaign?” asked campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt. “This is the mobile version of it.”
Naturally the Birthers are even more infuriated by this. They figure the President is being petty and obsessive, and coming from these morons (and yes, anyone who believes Obama was born in Kenya, I've got some nice beachfront property in Utah for you) that's just hysterical.
Might as well make some campaign cash off of making fun of these fools, yes?
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