Now that Derb has closed the subject of the military obligations of George W. Bush, I’m only too happy to do the same concerning the draft and Dick Cheney. But I need to make two final points:

Point one:

The email I posted the other day, in which a reader argued that nine months falls short of the actual gestation period of 39 weeks, was simply mistaken. To wit, and quoting another reader—and if this isn’t more than you care to hear on the subject, you ought to consider medical school:

“I’m afraid your correspondent about gestational length both hasn’t

known many pregnant women and is somewhat ignorant of statistics.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, National

Vital Statistics Reports, vol. 52, no. 10, Dec. 17, 2003, the mean

gestational age in the US (albeit for 2002) is 38.8 weeks, with a

standard deviation of 2.5 weeks. That’s time from conception, not

from last normal menstrual period; the latter is what’s used in

clinical practice. Assuming a normal distribution (not quite right,

since there’s a long tail to the left—preemies and such, and a

truncated distribution on the right—doctors will intervene at about

42 weeks) that means that about 60% of babies are in utero for 9

months and 2 days or less. Whether or not the Cheney conception story

is true, it is certainly possible.”

Point two:

Of all the men who were of the proper age to be drafted during the Vietnam War, 60 percent, or some 9 ½ million, received perfectly legal deferments, including the deferment given to married men with children. Dick and Lynne Cheney weren’t the only young married couple in the nineteen sixties who—astonishing thought—had children.