The 9-3-4 PI Column. Page 2 -- The Bushies did not learn a thing. They knew this wasn't softball. The question is: What did Chris Matthews learn?

The 9-3-04 PI seems to be under the impression that the Bushies aren't schooled in "Zell will be Zell" and maybe expected him to play softball when the name of the game and the show was Hardball.

The column notes:

"Following his Wednesday night speech, an exhausted Zell Miller was escorted by Bush-Cheney operatives from talk show to talk show. The Bushies learned the supreme rule of Georgia politics: An angry, tired and adrenaline-filled Zell is not a controllable Zell.

On the morning after his big speech, the buzz in New York and Atlanta was that an angry Miller had challenged MSNBC's Chris Matthews to a duel.

Miller was still on the noisy floor of the convention, and the exchange is sometimes difficult to follow."

Then the column gives the full transcript of what the column calls the "'Hardball' confrontation."

I think the Bushies were very pleased. Uncontrollable? This was nothing but vintage Zell, and I am glad he socked it to Chris Matthews. Oh how many times I have wanted to do the same.

I don't think the Bushies learned much they did not know. But Chris Matthews. I think he learned something.

I think he learned that if he wants to play Hardball with someone, if he wants to have a guest on his show and expect to get away with his usual browbeating of the guest when he is supposed to be interviewing the guest, that's his call and the call of the network, but don't expect to do the same with Zell and have him just back down quietly and play dead and say please don't hit me again man.

I think Chris Matthews learned what he should have known before -- that it was inevitable that someday someone would decide enough was enough, and I believe he will confess that he should not have been that surprised that that "someone" would be Zell Miller.