"He'll die with his boots on," was until a few days ago the popular prediction about how the long-running premiership of Dr Mahathir Mohamad would end.

That prediction could still come true, given the lengthy interregnum to an Abdullah Ahmad Badawi premiership, though its chances  so dominant has Mahathir been of the country he has led for 21 years and will lead for another 15 months.

Would it be naive to assume that Abdullah's premiership would be remarkable simply by him being conventional? The long torpor induced by Mahathir's jolting unconventionality may find its requisite antidote in Pak Lah's ordinariness.