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White House press secretary Robert Gibbs this morning again unloaded on the birthers, the subset of Americans who believe that President Obama was not born in America despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Gibbs was asked about a new poll from new poll (PDF) by Public Policy Polling which found that just 53 percent of likely voters in Virginia believe Mr. Obama was born in the United States.

Roughly one quarter responded that they are "not sure" in the poll. Another quarter responded that the president was not born in the United States.

An important note: The pollsters in this survey used a method called robo-calling, in which actual human beings are not asking the questions. Instead, a recording poses the question and respondents are asked to simply to press, for example, 1, 2 or 3 on their phones to respond. CBS News does not believe these sorts of polls have the same reliability as traditional polls. We are mentioning this one here only because a question about it prompted Gibbs' comments.

Asked if he feels the finding is "amazing," Gibbs responded, "I mean it is and it isn’t."

"I've said this before," Gibbs continued, as CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller reports. "If I had DNA, I'm entirely sure that a sizeable number of people would not believe it. They've seen a birth certificate. It's on the Internet. It's been there for a year and a half. The State of Hawaii, the 50th state in the great United States of America, has said it's true."

Gibbs then said "you couldn't sell [the birther] script in Hollywood," prompting a reporter to ask if the press secretary had been to the movies lately.

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Yesterday, an innocuous-sounding resolution in honor of the 50th anniversary of Hawaiian statehood came up for vote on the House floor.

The resolution from Hawaii Democrat Neil Abercrombie, which Greg Sargent first reported, included this line: "Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii…"

Why is that notable? Because it's just the sort of claim that angers the birthers – the movement of folks who believe, against overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that President Obama was not really born in Hawaii, and is thus not a U.S. citizen.

Some Republicans have been dancing around birther issue, refusing to state flatly that the president is a U.S. citizen. (Here's a video from liberal blog Firedoglake of a number of GOP Congressmen dodging the question.) As Sargent wrote, the resolution put that group in a difficult position: "They can vote for the measure, and endorse the idea that Obama was born in Hawaii, which could earn the wrath of birthers. Or they can vote against commemorating the 50th state's joining of our blessed Union. Or GOPers can skip the vote, but that could look nutty."

Among those who have been offering the birthers at least tacit support are a group of House Republicans who introduced a bill (known informally as "the birther bill") mandating that presidential candidates reveal their birth certificates.

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Conspiracy theories often flourish in the wake of traumatic or game-changing events – the Sept. 11 attacks, the moon landing, the Kennedy assassination – and the election of America's first black president has been no exception.

Almost as soon as Barack Obama emerged as a serious candidate for the presidency, rumors about whether or not he is really an American, and thus eligible for the presidency, began popping up online. In response, the Obama campaign posted the Certification of Live Birth* (here it is) showing that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961.

But that did not quiet the skeptics, a group that has been come to be known as the "birthers." If anything, it encouraged them. They argued that the birth certificate is a fake, and that Mr. Obama is not the "natural born citizen" he claims to be. Mr. Obama, many birthers say, was actually born in Kenya, though there are a number of theories that fall under the birther umbrella.

The din eventually got loud enough that some reputable organizations checked out the birthers' claims – and they found no evidence to support them. In fact, there was overwhelming evidence against such claims, including Mr. Obama's 1961 birth announcement, printed in two Hawaii newspapers. Here's one detailed investigation, and here's another.

PolitiFact wrote after its extensive look at the claims a year ago:

It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world's biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything's possible.

But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what's reasonable has to take over.

Yet the birthers' claims have not simply survived into Mr. Obama's presidency – they've actually gained steam. Liz Cheney, talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Michael Reagan and even CNN's Lou Dobbs are among those taking the birthers' theories seriously. Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others have pushed the argument in court; earlier this month a soldier challenged his deployment to Iraq based on birther claims.

The birthers are a passionate bunch, as this video of a birther angrily confronting Delaware Republican Rep. Mike Castle handily illustrates. "Why are you people ignoring his birth certificate?," the woman asks, prompting cheers from the crowd. "He is not an American citizen, he is a citizen of Kenya."

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Here's a story tailor-made to burn up the Internet: A soldier is objecting to his deployment to Iraq because he believes President Obama wasn't born in the United States.

Conspiracy theories about where Mr. Obama was born abound in some quarters despite the fact that the Obama campaign posted the then-candidate's Hawaiian birth certificate online last year. Skeptics call the certificate a forgery, though their claims have been repeatedly debunked.

Among the doubters is conservative politician Alan Keyes, who has taken the question of the president's birth to court. Keyes believes Mr. Obama is not a "natural born citizen" and is thus ineligible for the presidency under the Constitution.

Now comes word that U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, a reservist who lives in Florida, is challenging his deployment based on that argument. Reports the Ledger-Enquirer out of Columbus, Georgia: "Cook’s lawyer, Orly Taitz, who has also challenged the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency in other courts, filed a request last week in federal court seeking a temporary restraining order and status as a conscientious objector for his client."

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