Sen. Miller’s media star is rising

Chris Matthews is ready for a rematch. When the MSNBC anchor tangled with Sen. Zell Miller on Wednesday night after the Georgia Democrat’s fiery keynote speech to the Republican National Convention, it made for some of the best television of the week. It also turned Miller overnight into a much-in-demand TV guest who can be expected to pop up often on screens in coming weeks.

Following his take-no-prisoners convention speech, Miller came in for some tough questioning by Matthews, who bore in on the senator’s sarcastic comment about whether Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry would leave the military armed with only “spitballs” for defense.

But the interview deteriorated as Matthews kept interrupting Miller to get him to say whether he really believed the “spitballs” line. At one point, Miller told Matthews: “I wish we lived in the day when you could challenge a person to a duel.”

Matthews said Friday that he was “as surprised by his performance as anyone.”

“I don’t quite get it,” Matthews said, adding that increasingly, interview subjects are “doing things on the air that I don’t think they would do before ... slinging accusations and then they are surprised when forced to say what they mean.”

But he said Miller has an invitation to come back on the show. Other outlets are interested too. “There’s no doubt you’ll see Zell Miller on TV as a Bush surrogate between now and election day,” said Sam Feist, who oversees CNN’s political coverage. “He’ll definitely be a hot booking.”

But Miller told radio host Don Imus that another bout with Matthews was unlikely.