The leaders of various groupings within the European Parliament have been unable to reach consensus on approving the nomination of Dr Tonio Borg as a Commissioner.
This is despite, and not because of, his handling of the "grilling" to which he was subjected, a grilling that, by all accounts was one of the heaviest ever meted out.
By the same number of accounts, Borg, or I could call him Tonio, having known him for almost forty years, came through the experience "excellent rare", if I could be allowed to bastardise a culinary term.
"Excellent" because - not two ways about it - he was quite simply that and "rare" because few have put up his level of performance.This, however, did not lead to an agreement, simply because a certain frame of mind is incapable of eschewing prejudice in favour of objectivity.
Your common or garden "liberal", at least such of that genus that infests the EP, is liberal and accommodating of different ways of looking at things only insofar as this way of looking at things sits comfortably with her own preconceived notions.
It is immaterial, clearly, that Borg is entirely capable of separating his personal views from positions mandated on him by the law, as his consistent and strong answers to his interlocutors last Tuesday made absolutely clear.
It does not appear relevant that it is obvious that he will add value by the bucket-load to the European Cabinet. No, his detractors, to a woman and man, prefer to stick to their guns, even if the train of these guns is determined not by any real knowledge of Tonio's attitudes but by what they have gleaned from dribs and drabs of information, the accuracy of which is less than cast-iron, to put it mildly.
These people, do remember, seem to think that contraception is illegal in Malta. I suppose we're lucky that their obsession with other people's sexual mores hasn't led them to think that we have CCTV in our bedrooms, so that only very limited acts of sexual congress may be indulged in and only by one man and one woman, duly licensed for the purpose by The State.
Tonio can be proud of himself: if he is rejected, the people who are responsible will not be able to be, because they will have demonstrated that they prefer to jerk their knees than use their brains.The whole world is just a little village, really.