Russia and especially the Kremlin have always been curiously thin-skinned and even insecure.

How else to explain their bristling reaction to the English-language song that the tiny neighboring republic of Georgia has voted to enter in the enormously popular Eurovision European song contest.

In the contest, a Georgian pop group called Stephane and 3G - Stephane is a male, the 3G are women -will sing, in English, "We Don't Want to Put In," a labored play on Vladimir Putin, Russia's former president and current prime minister. And this year the contest is broadcast from Moscow.

As The New York Times put it, "taking a musical swipe at Mr. Putin right in the Russian capital" has excited patriotic passions. One Russian music producer told the Times the song was "amoral" and that Eurovision "should forbid this song because it insults our country." The song is available on YouTube, but be warned: The disco beat, flashing lights and Stephane's outfit and bushy sideburns and mustache evoke much of what was wrong with the '70s.

A spokesman for Putin called the song "hooliganism" and said Georgia was exploiting the song contest to "promote pseudopolitical ambitions." Surely not pseudopolitical ambitions.

The lead singer, Stephane Mgebrishbili, told the Times the song was a "marketing trick"intended to "attract as much attention as possible." With considerable help from the Russians, the gimmick worked.