Stop the presses: Oh, Irving, Irving, Irving, you miserable rat, are those wicked prosecutors going to make you rat out your rat boss the Veep?

Thinkprogress.org has the video and a transcript of a report by MSNBC's David Shuster on the prosecution's opening arguments in the trial of vice presidential stooge Irving "Lewis" Libby, and the news sounds potentially disastrous for Irving's old boss.

Of course this is only the prosecution's opening, laying out the case it claims it will prove to the jury. But as Shuster suggests, those claims are explosive (all emphasis added):

DAVID SHUSTER: During opening arguments in the case against Scooter Libby, prosecutors outlined evidence about Vice President Cheney’s role in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Wilson that is new and will astound a number of people, even those who have been following this case. The prosecutors said the evidence will make it clear that the very first government official who told Scooter Libby about Valerie Wilson, the wife of a critic and the fact that she was working at the CIA, the very first person who told him that was Vice President Cheney. The prosecutor said the evidence will also show Vice President Cheney himself directed Scooter Libby to essentially go around protocol and deal with the press and handle press himself, that Scooter Libby should be the one talking to the press to try to beat back the criticism of administration critic Joe Wilson.

Prosecutors also revealed today that Vice President Cheney himself wrote out for Scooter Libby what Scooter Libby should say in a conversation with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper. It was during that conversation when Scooter Libby provided confirmation to Cooper that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA. In addition, there were some blockbuster revelations this morning about Scooter Libby’s actions before he testified to the FBI about the original leak. According to prosecutors, the evidence will show that Scooter Libby destroyed a note from Vice President Cheney about their conversations and about how Vice President Cheney wanted the Wilson matter handled.

There was other information that came out about Vice President Cheney. The prosecutors talked about the State of the Union speech where the president made a false claim about reasons for war with Iraq--the idea that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. When that came out, and the White House was trying to figure out who should take responsibility, according to prosecutors, Vice President Cheney repeatedly urged the Director of the CIA George Tenet to take full responsibility and that no blame whatsoever should land on the president or Office of the Vice President.

It was blockbuster developments about Vice President Cheney. This is the kind of information that supporters of the Vice President have feared would come out in this trial. The Vice President is not accused of any wrongdoing, but prosecutors are building their case, trying to give the jury a motive for why Scooter Libby did what he did as far as blaming reporters for passing along classified information when, the prosecutors allege, he learned that from the beginning from the Vice President.

It turns out that administration toadies who have been whining that "Prosecutor Pat" Fitzgerald merely seized on some tiny legalistic technicality to prosecute our Irving in order to save face for himself had no idea what they were talking about. And you'll recall that Prosecutor Pat himself has always refused in the most absolute terms to discuss his investigation or any cases his office would bring.

If our Pat is as fastidious a lawyer as we've always been told, it seems doubtful that his team would put anything in their opening arguments that they aren't confident they can prove to a jury. And it just may be that one of the things Pat wouldn't tell us--among all the other things he wouldn't tell us--is that he had Vice President Cheney in his sights all along as the ultimate architect of the outing of Valerie Wilson as a CIA agent.