By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts
Thursday, December 15, 2005

We have discovered something new about the vice president, and it may have the power to boost those approval ratings!

The man invited his most wicked impersonator to his own Christmas party.

"Saturday Night Live's" Darrell Hammond , who has perfected the crooked little smile of Vice President Cheney , was a jittery guest at Tuesday's bash for 400 at the Naval Observatory. Not to worry -- the comedian says he was "warmly received" and "shared a chuckle" with the veep and wife Lynne when he posed for the standard souvenir photo. We wish we had seen that, to tell you which man does the better Cheney. Hammond said he doesn't even remember their conversation: "I'm always nervous around presidents and vice presidents."

This was Hammond's first invite to the vice presidential residence, where he mingled with Alan Greenspan , Andy Card , Mary Cheney , Newt Gingrich and Wolf Blitzer . (No sighting of Karl Rove or Scooter Libby . ) The comic, who also does impressions of President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld , behaved like any other rubbernecker. "It's hard to not be star-struck," he said, when you're shaking hands with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia .

At these events, it's best to have some party patter at the ready. Three press types found themselves making small talk with Roberts when Ed Chen of the Los Angeles Times asked how the "new gig is working out."

"Great," said Roberts.

The Post's Mark Leibovich then asked the judge whether it's . . . well, appropriate to describe the job of chief justice of the United States as a "gig."

"Oh yes," Roberts replied. "Absolutely."

Annie Cefaratti , one of the folks swept up in the District's zero- tolerance drunken driving laws, has moved her annual Christmas party to Virginia. In August, the real estate agent was pulled over in Georgetown after drinking one glass of wine -- one of the several below-the-legal-limit arrests featured in a series of Washington Post stories. The subsequent uproar landed Cefaratti on the "Today" show and caused the city council to pass emergency legislation relaxing presumed intoxication levels to Virginia and Maryland limits.

But Cefaratti isn't taking any chances. She briefly considered hosting tonight's bash for 100 at Blue Gin in Georgetown, but decided against it: "I would be devastated if I entertained and someone got a DUI." Instead, her guests will celebrate the season at Sette Bello in Clarendon, where they'll presumably be in the spirit but not handcuffs.

D.C. mayoral hopeful Adrian Fenty in a lo-o-o-ong lunch meeting yesterday at the Jefferson Hotel with former mayor Sharon Pratt , in which the words "endorsement" and "voting record" were overheard by other diners. Got something to tell us, Sharon?

"We were just having lunch."

Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas at separate tables Tuesday in the same back room of the Capital Grille -- Thomas enjoying the calamari, Roberts ordering a cheeseburger and Coke and cracking up his lunch partners with stories that nearby diners, alas, could not quite hear.

Newly arrived : Matei-Nicolae Ducaru was born Dec. 5 to Romanian Ambassador Sorin Ducaru and wife Carmen . Coming into the world at 8 pounds and 21 inches, "Nic" joins what appears to be Embassy Row's first baby boom in several years, following the 2004 birth of Josephine to German Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger and wife Jutta , and the arrival of the Ducarus' Maria-Teodora -- now 2 years old and who, her father reports, has greeted the news quite "diplomatically." Does an ambassadorial baby born here automatically get American citizenship? Says an embassy spokeswoman: "It's not the same for the diplomats."