With Harry Whittington out of the hospital and back to the business of suing widows and orphans, it’s a safe bet we’ll soon forget the disbursement pattern and recoil characteristics of Dick Cheney’s Italian-made Perazzi firearm. But before we do, I’d like another swipe at assessing his marksmanship. Foremost, there’s Cheney’s dubious assertion he was shooting at a quail. Yet in order to hit Mr. Whittington so squarely in the face and chest, the Vice President couldn’t have been aiming very high. I mean if you’re going to kill birds THAT close to the ground, couldn’t you just bludgeon them with a tennis racquet or an old pair of shoes? Look, these guys were obviously well oiled at the time of the incident; Hell, they practically incriminated themselves. After swearing that no one had touched any booze whatsoever, Mr. Cheney conspicuously reversed course and confessed to having one beer with lunch. Days later, Mr. Whittington, who by then resembled a jungle-crazed Japanese soldier single handedly fighting WWII years after Hirohito’s surrender, clumsily declared, “Foremost there was no alcohol at the hunt.” Are these guys still drunk? How else could the same crew who brought us glorified tales of WMD and clandestine meetings in Prague cook up such a lame-ass story? One beer with lunch. Christ, anyone pulled over by the cops knows about the one-beer lunch. And how about the hypothesis that the BB lodged in the victim’s heart arrived by swimming through his veins as opposed to flying there directly from the muzzle of Mr. Cheney’s hand-forged shotgun. The administration even recruited several doctors to support this theory of embolization, but was soon enough undone by the disclosure that the pellets in question were far too large for vascular transport.

Clearly, Mr. Whittington is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Why else would he say, “My family and I are deeply sorry for everything Vice President Cheney and his family had to go through”? What’s next, a mea culpa for corrupting Mary Cheney’s sexual orientation? No matter, even though birdshot remains lodged in his vital organs, old Harry has plenty to be grateful for. First, he’s alive. Second, his parents aren’t arguing whether or not he should get circumcised.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of an eight-year old Illinois boy whose divorced parents have gone to court to see which of them will get custody of his foreskin. While the American Academy of Pediatrics no longer recommends circumcision, the boy’s mother says two doctors are recommending it to prevent recurrent infections. I can tell you from experience that my circumcision did nothing to prevent several recurrent infections I sustained in college. I say leave the kid’s dick alone and buy him a box of condoms. And it might be a good idea to keep him away from that girl Vanessa in Anthropology. At any rate, his father describes the procedure as an “unnecessary amputation” and cites a proviso in the divorce decree stating he must be consulted before his son undergoes any non-emergency medical care. And, for the nonce, U.S. Circuit Court Judge Jordan Kaplan concurs, decreeing “nobody touches his pecker until further order of [the] court.”

It should be noted that Jews and Muslims — in the lulls between killing each other — circumcise their sons for religious reasons. But there are earthly rewards, too. For example the $1.42 million judgment bestowed upon a 7-year old boy for a botched circumcision performed by a first-year resident at the Medical Center of the University of California at Davis. A California jury, incensed by the hospital’s attempt to induce the parents to sign a consent form after the fact, exacted a record-setting toll. The remuneration topped the £800,000 ($1.3 million at prevailing exchange rates) awarded in the United Kingdom in 1998. That same year, however, a three-week old boy died undergoing anesthesia at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital during a secondary surgery to repair a blocked urethra caused by, well, you can guess the rest.

For all her problems (uterine fibroids, Alfred E. Neuman countenance, restricted country clubs), Condi Rice at least needn’t worry about penile vagaries. She’s a woman through and through. While bloated bodies were floating down the streets and canals of New Orleans, the Secretary of State became a distaff icon by shoe shopping on Fifth Avenue and taking in a Broadway show. When Russia threatened to cut off natural gas supplies to the Ukraine (and by extension most of Europe), Ms. Rice took a matronly tone and scolded the erstwhile Soviets: “To be a part of the international economy… you play by its rules. I think about the distance between Russian behavior and what would be expected of a responsible member of the G-8.” She then sent the Russkies to their room without supper. In response, the leader of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, snapped, “The true reason of Ms. Rice’s attack is simple. [She] is a very cruel, offended woman who lack’s a man’s attention. Releasing such stupid remarks gives her the feeling of being fulfilled.” Vlad went on to opine that Condi –“a single woman who has no children” — clearly suffers from “sexual problems.” In other words, she should worry about cock. “Condoleezza Rice needs a company of soldiers,” he continued, “She needs to be taken to the barracks where she would be satisfied.”

Within or without the Quonset huts, Militant Christian Right-to-Lifers may soon find gratification. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal of a partial-birth abortion case, Gonzales v. Carhart. The review will test a lower court’s ruling that the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act is unconstitutional because it provides no exception where the mother’s health is at risk. The Pro Choice crowd is clinging to the fact that in 2000, the court struck down a similar Nebraska statute by a narrow 5-4 majority. But now that O’Connor has been replaced by Alito, this vote is certain to go the other way. And that, pray the Born Agains, will be the beginning of the end for the precedent established by Roe v. Wade. And so it may very well be that Mr. Cheney was the last Dick to spray his seed without consequence.