Just to respond to your point that they give it more attention: Their whole purpose is to give it more attention. Most people know he was born in Hawaii or don’t care if he was born elsewhere (logically, if he was born in Kenya or Hawaii, that doesn’t change the fact that his policies are failures that result in $1,800 billion deficits). Something that gets attention doesn’t make people believe it. Like if I wanted to say liberals are idiots, I could talk about how they think 9/11 was brought down by Dick Cheney. Me bringing it up won’t make anyone else believe it; it will just make liberals look like idiots.
I know what you’re saying, but I don’t think it does make the birthers look like idiots. The 9/11 conspiracy theory was (is) irrational, because there’s never been any shred of evidence to back it up and it just makes no sense. In the BC case, all the birthers are saying is that obama’s not offered up his BC for all to look at. And, in fact, he’s going out of his way and spending money, apparently, to avoid it. I don’t see those two scenarios as equivalent, and IMO only the most die-hard obama fans would equate the two. So my thinking is that the more air time the BC issue gets the more questions it will raise for those who are not inclined to support obama no matter what.