When President Obama gives a press conference pushing his health-care plan tonight, the controversy over where he was born likely will be the furthest thing from his mind.

The president will give a live press conference at 8 PM ET tonight, expected to be aired by all major networks, during which he will try to ease concerns of reluctant lawmakers and Americans over the plan to overhaul the nation’s health-care system. Obama wants "action" from Congress on the various bills being debated now, preferably before the August 8 congressional recess, but there are more indications that timetable may not be met.

Meanwhile, Obama’s birth certificate issue is apparently still the topic du jour of some people whom MSNBC’s Chris Matthews calls "nutcases." LA Times columnist James Rainey writes today about how CNN host Lou Dobbs took a call on his show last week from someone "musing darkly about President Obama ‘rushing all these programs through by whatever means,’ knowing he will soon be exposed as a fake, a fraud, a … Kenyan."

Instead of hanging up on the caller, Dobbs said, "Certainly your view can’t be discounted." Rainey writes: "So it went over the last week, with the bloviating interviewer offering the (nominal) credibility of his syndicated radio show, which airs on dozens of stations, and the CNN television brand as a platform for assorted wing nuts, whose conspiracy fulminations about Obama had previously been most virulent in the more disreputable reaches of the Internet."

The birth certificate issue is one that just won’t go away. Some believe the certificate offered up by officials in Hawaii — the place of Obama’s birth — isn’t authentic. A prerequisite for someone to be president in America is that he or she must have been born in the United States. Despite the then-Obama campaign and others slapping down these "conspiracy theories," they still persist.

Rep. Mike Castle, D-DE, recently had to deal with a question from a "birther," asking "why are you people ignoring his [Obama’s] birth certificate? He is NOT an American citizen." And she got resounding applause and cheers from the audience. Now, Rep. John Campbell, R-CA, has introduced a bill requiring presidential candidates to submit copies of their birth certificates. Although Campbell didn’t come out and say he thinks there’s merit to the argument that Obama may have not been born here, "Hardball" host Matthews accused him of fueling the conspiracy flames.

"What is going on that so many Americans doubt the obvious, that Barack Obama is a citizen, to the point that you felt it necessary to co-sponsor this crazy proposal?" Matthews asked Campbell. Campbell said his bill was "only looking forward." After Matthews accused Campbell of “feeding the wacko wing of the Republican Party,” Campbell said Obama was in fact born here, "as far as I know."

Watch Matthews’ exchange with Campbell below:

Here’s video of Castle’s interaction with a "birther":