Interviewed last week by Lou Bondì in his one-to-one Bondì+ programme, the prime minister and Nationalist leader fielded questions with the determination and surefootedness of a deft professional, as well as with agility that contrasts with the lacklustre dribbling of the rest of his team. That is not to say he came through with a heavy score in his favour, or that he did not score one or two own-goals.
One glaring example of the latter came from an interchange of passes between two questions put by the interviewer. Mr Bondì queried whether there was not a tiny touch of arrogance about the way the PM went about his business, whether there was not a mite of fundamentalism in him.
Dr Eddie Fenech Adami followed that crossed ball sail through the air without blinking. Not at all, he opined. In substance he projected himself as a man who applied a logical approach to any given situation, reached his firm conclusion, and having done that, put it forth as strongly as possible. That was not an exercise in arrogance or fundamentalism, merely a man who carefully considered, decided, and pushed his conclusion, he indicated.
He kept the ball away from the net in regard to a question concerning George Abela and myself. The interviewer recalled that some time back the PM had said that my friend George and I should militate in the Labour Party - did he still feel that?
Actually Dr Fenech Adami, on the occasion under reference, had rather arrogantly proclaimed that George and I had a duty to be active again within the MLP. I recall that through this column I had questioned what right the PM felt he had to tell private people what to do.
This time round he was much more urbane. He replied that he felt that Dr Abela, as a former deputy leader, and I, as a former minister, still had a role to play in the Labour Party, but that it was up to us to decide what to do; he had no intention of interfering in our affairs.
Good manners, good show. That said, the PM might as well have applied his logical approach to the game and went on to say that Dr Joe Fenech, Dr George Bonello Du Puis, Dr Emmanuel Bonnici - to mention at random a trio of former Nationalist ministers - still had a role to play in their party. But the premise, he might plead, was not there. Lou Bondì had specifically asked him about George Abela and Lino Spiteri; nobody else.
Though my friend and I both happen to keep out of political sight, we do not seem to be out of political mind. George in particular - understandable, since his future stretches long before him, while mine grows shorter, making my pre-election decision that the 1996 contest would be my last seem wiser with each passing day - continues to attract considerable attention, not always of the correct kind.
Dr Fenech Adami's self-proclaimed logical rigour, however, did not stand the test of the shortest imaginable span of time. Mr Bondì recalled the suggestion by Opposition Leader Alfred Sant that both sides shelve the EU issue for a few years to concentrate on matters of, he felt, more immediate import.
Now there was a good test to the interviewee's claim to innocence of any arrogance or fundamentalism. He would have kept that long ball out had he replied that he fundamentally disagreed with Dr Sant, even if had also declared that in his opinion the suggestion was absurd.
No way. Dr Fenech Adami immediately thundered the accusation that the Labour Party leader was "irresponsible" when he made that suggestion.
Sadly, the PM's claim to reasonableness, to calmly reached and then strongly held convictions sounded very hollow as he pushed the ball into the net of his self-contradiction.
Watching a replay of the action and his own-goal Dr Fenech Adami might protest that he is not the only one to take such an extreme position. The Opposition Leader and others who disagree with him over the EU accuse the PM just as sweepingly, just as arrogantly from a fundamentalist position.
Even so, Dr Fenech Adami, if nothing else, had to measure himself by his own yardstick put out in the same programme.
I have long suggested that there is another yardstick, that the man is at a stage in life that converges with the need of the country for statesmanship, rather than absolute, fundamentalist partisan positions. He simply refuses to rise to the occasion.
Even when he is in the process of telling so many thousands of television viewers that charges of arrogance and fundamentalism were unfair in his regard.
That was not a pretty goal. Own-goals never are. But they still go on the score sheet.
The Bondi+ interview with the prime minister was quite wide-ranging, and there was some hard talk in it. There never is time to cover what others might feel should be tackled on such occasions. To fill that gap I have built on some of the questions that Lou Bondì put to Dr Fenech Adami this latest time around to come up with the framework of a virtual interview. It being so (virtual, that is) the PM will logically feel no need to answer.
Still, with so much virtual reality washing about, here goes....
Prime Minister....
Some say that you are arrogant, and that extended years in government have brought out this characteristic in you into the open. Does the thought strike you at times, perhaps when shaving, reminding you of the perils of hubris? Do you try to make a clear distinction between conviction and fundamentalism? What distinguishes you from Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici in that particular respect?
What gain do you see accruing to Malta from the frequent trips abroad that you make to meet European leaders and top bureaucrats?
When you go abroad on official business and a bevy of journalists accompany you and your delegation, who foots the bill for them? Whoever does pay - whether the people, the media owners, or both - are not such conspicuous communication entourages in our era of instant communication an unnecessary drain on the country's foreign currency reserves? Do you sometimes reflect that such paraphernalia parallels you with Gulliver sojourning from Lilliput?
There are those who hold that you are obsessed with the EU. Do you ask yourself whether that may be so in some small or bigger measure?
In life, even within the realm of politics, anything can happen, not least what one least wants or expects. Do you have any contingency plans in the event that the forthcoming referendum on EU membership does not yield a clear 'Yes' outcome? If you do not, are you not thereby the soulmate of the Opposition Leader who repeatedly demonstrated in a recent interview with The Times of Malta that he would not contemplate any other result but a Labour victory in the next general election?
Recently you complained, with barely restrained anger, that the opposition to EU membership was discouraging direct investment in Malta from abroad. Can you reconcile that position with the incessant claim by your party and government spokespersons that investment is flowing in ever so strongly?
While it may not be brought to your notice insistently, there is muted and sometimes open criticism by Nationalists too that your government is weak, listless, and ineffectual, and also that it takes people for granted. Does any hint of such criticism reach your ears at all? Does the fact that you have kept your Cabinet static, more like effigies at Madame Tussaud's than in a dynamic team, contribute to this perception of almost deliberate inertia?
When four years ago the former Labour leader and PM, Dom Mintoff, then a backbench MP, criticised the Labour government on various counts, you swiftly and enthusiastically encouraged him and praised him to the high heavens. Now that he is - so he says - trying to make suggestions on a middle way towards the EU, you dismiss him as yesterday's man. Does not that smack of cynicism and hypocrisy?