I’ve been engaging each evening of this convention in a “diablog” over at the Christian Science Monitor (to see for yourself, click here, then look for “Diablog: Real-time repartee”), and tonight, during John Edwards’ speech, my blogging partner, James Norton, who works with Al Franken, hit me with a new line of attack on Dick Cheney. Cheney avoided the draft, the attack goes, by siring a child in the nick of time.

As James put it, “You want to talk about a lack of gravitas when it comes to war…? To quote the New York Times: ‘On Oct. 6, 1965, the Selective Service lifted its ban against drafting married men who had no children. Nine months and two days later, Mr. Cheney’s first daughter, Elizabeth, was born.’”

Can anyone fill me in here? Is this an eccentric view? A mere catty observation? Or do Democrats really believe that one morning 40 years ago the Cheneys read a newspaper story about a Selective Serivice decision, and then, that night—there really is no other way to put it—leapt into bed to give Dick Cheney an out?