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A lunch kaki referred me to Kalimullah's commentary in The NST today:

Likewise, when Higher Education Minister Datuk Shafie Salleh continued with his spats with the vice-chancellors of universities and plans to expand higher education standards were moving sluggishly, he was removed and replaced by the more meticulous, consensus-building and amiable Datuk Mustapa Mohamed.

And when Datuk Dr Leo Michael Toyad, a decent person, was lacklustre in the Tourism Ministry - a major revenue source for the country - as compared to his flamboyant and workaholic predecessor Datuk Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir, he, too, had to make way for Tengku Adnan Mansor, a veteran with previous Cabinet experience.[...]

And if they do not perform - whether new or old - their shelf- lives may be as short, or even shorter, than those of Shafie and Dr Toyad.

My friend told me there are two sides to a coin. He said while Kalimullah may see it as Shafie and Leo Michael having failed Pak Lah, but it's evidently also a wrong judgment call on the part of Pak Lah by appointing them into his 2004 Cabinet in the first place.

"At best, Shafie and Leo Micheal may be of deputy minister's material, and that's the way Tun Dr Mahathir has had the wisdom of assigning them to the positions they could fit in," he said.

2 x 5 = 5 x 2... ya tak ya juga as the Malay saying goes.