Lots of emails like the three below. Do I know what to make of all this? The arguments in the final two emails strike me as completely sensible.

Contra Cheney:

“I don’t think it’s a strange assumption at all [that the Cheneys conceived a child so Dick could avoid service in Vietnam] since my father did the same thing in 1968 – he threw away my mom’s birth control pills when he got his draft letter. He got lucky – mom found out she was pregnant the day of his physical… What is surprising is that he [Cheney] would try to dodge the draft that early when the war was still fairly positive.

Pro Cheney:

“[H]ow old were the Cheneys when [their daughter] Elizabeth was born? Were they at an age when people tend to have children anyway? And presumably the Selective Service had been debating this issue for some time before it was announced. If the Cheneys were really wanting to use a child as a deferment, wouldn’t they have done this when the debate over the rule change started? Why have that nine month delay to worry about? That would make the exact date of the rule change less of a marker, making the coincidence in dates less interesting.”

“The next time somebody forwards the preposterous theory that Cheney’s first child was a draft avoidance trick, ask them how Mrs Cheney timed her ovulation so well. Once a decision is made to try to have a child, it can take up to a year of normal efforts before success for a normal, healthy couple (go ask any doctor). The idea is nutty in the extreme.”