I'm pretty sure I wasn't on crack.

When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever possibility remains, no matter how implausible, must be the correct answer.

Ergo: Zell Miller challenged Chris Matthews to a duel tonight.

If you don't know what I'm talking about:

Chris Matthews spent the entire evening decrying the treachery of Zell Miller. When Laura Ingraham pointed out he didn't seem to consider Jim Jeffords' defection treasonous, Matthews cut her off by saying that wasn't the question he had asked.

He badgered Kay Bailey Hutchinson about this, then suggested that Miller should, in the interests of honor, stop drawing checks from the Senate, and actually quit the Senate. (No such suggestions were offered to Jim Jeffords, natch.)

Then, his big claim of the night was that all of Kerry's anti-defense votes -- ALL of them -- either had to do purely with parliamentary procedure or else were cases of voting against a big bill because he found one particular item in that bill objectionable. He could not fathom that Kerry -- a longtime liberal and dove -- could have ever actually did what liberals and doves often do, i.e., vote against a weapon system on the merits.

Finally, Zell Miller appears on camera for an interview. Chris badgers him about treachery, then keeps asking if Miller really wants to arm our troops with "spitballs." Um-- how the fuck do you answer this question? It's idiotic. Obviously, no one believes that John Kerry literally wants to arm our troops with mashed up bits of paper held together with human saliva. But Chris kept on asking.

At this point, Miller told him that he wouldn't let him do to him what he did to that "little girl you had on a few weeks ago," a reference to Michelle Malkin.

Chris then began asking if Miller thought that his speech had served the interests of unity in the country. Again, Chrissy never seems curious if Kerry's or McAuliffe's attacks on Bush harm unity in the country, but tonight he had quite the little bee in his bonnet about this point.

At this point, Miller told him:

I wish we were living in an earlier time, when dueling was permitted.

And he was not smiling. I don't know if he was serious, but he also wasn't exactly kidding.

Chris Matthews chuckled it off as the ravings of an angry old lunatic, and his paid panel -- including, I'm sorry to say, JC Watts -- then took Matthews side. Watts was quite eager to say that Matthews was asking straight questions ("Do you really think Kerry wants to arm our troops with spitballs?" is a straight fucking question, JC?) and that Miller hadn't been "set up" and all of this was quite right and normal.