GREAT MIND ADMIRED

Dominique de Villepin gazes lovingly at Harold Pinter, recipient of France's Legion D'Honneur. De Villepin apparently took pains to make it appear Pinter wasn't being honoured simply because he's anti-American but did indirectly slam America by praising Pinter's poem American Football:

"With its violence and its cruelty, it is for me one of the most accurate images of war, one of the most telling metaphors of the temptation of imperialism and violence," he said.

Judging by the look on de Villepin's face it's a safe bet he's chucking wood -- being a Frenchman, he no doubt finds Pinter's uncompromising radical intellectualism a real turn on. As do we all.

American Football is here -- if you're so inclined you can register and rate it.