Here’s what happened: Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, waiting for a BBC interview to begin last week, takes a cell phone cell and begins nervously nibbling on the end of his tie, somewhat stuffing it into his mouth. Russian media go nuts over the video, calling in “experts” to say that this shows Saakashvili is falling apart and is unfit to lead in the face of the conflict with Russia. Here’s what Pravda had to say:

“…The report was about the situation in the area of the conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia. The footage showed Saakashvili making a call to a top Western official. It could be clearly seen that Mr. Saakashvili was having a nervous breakdown.


…Specialists of medicine have questions about his mental state, Rossia TV channel says.


His statements, which he makes on one and the same day, may often contradict to each other. RussiaÂ’s well-known psychologists claim that the Georgian leader is a mentally unstable individual. Specialists say that SaakashviliÂ’s ambition exceeds his capabilities.


Such mental unbalance leads to irresponsible political decisions, which lead to chaos, human deaths and humanitarian catastrophes.”

Fittingly, The Moscow Times penned an article about Russian media spinning the tie-chomping:

“…What he did not know was that the cameras were already rolling and the BBC would broadcast the footage on Friday, with a joking comment about the Georgian leader chewing over his next move.


The clip was soon picked up by Russian news sources, which gave it a more sinister spin, calling in criminal psychiatrist Mikhail Vinogradov to comment on Saakashvili’s mental state.


Vinogradov, who specializes in serial killers, told the Vesti news channel on Saturday that Saakashvili ’shows the highest degree of anxiety’ and that he is ‘psychologically inadequate.’


It was not the first time that the psychiatrist had volunteered an expert opinion on Saakashvili. In the Tvoi Den tabloid last week, he called the Georgian president a ’sociopath.’


On its Saturday news show, Channel One quoted unidentified psychiatrists as saying that Saakashvili had “clear signs of a mental disorder.”

Obviously, no Russian outlets were willing to chalk up the incident to what it clearly seems to be: a slobbery bad habit.