Cheney may have to testify in Plame case. Champagne is already on ice, ready to party.

Vice President Cheney was personally angered by a former U.S. ambassador's newspaper column attacking a key rationale for the war in Iraq and repeatedly directed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then his chief of staff, to "get all the facts out" related to the critique, according to excerpts from Libby's 2004 grand jury testimony released late yesterday by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Libby also told the grand jury that Cheney raised as an issue that the former ambassador's wife worked at the CIA and that she allegedly played a role in sending him to investigate the Iraqi government's interest in acquiring nuclear weapons materials. That issue formed the basis of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's published critique.

"The state of mind of the Vice President as communicated to defendant is directly relevant to the issue of whether defendant knowingly made false statements to federal agents and the grand jury regarding when and how he learned about Ms. Wilson's employment and what he said to reporters regarding this issue," he said.

The prosecutor also left open the possibility that Cheney will be called as a witness at Libby's trial, scheduled to begin next year, and denied an assertion last week by Libby's lawyers that Cheney would not be called.

You can see by the picture just how happy Cheney is to hear this news.

"I hate Joe Wilson! I hate his jobless wife too! I also hate America! I pretty much hate everything! Stupid free press, how did you escape our control? I hate you too!"