People Whose Reputations Would be Improved by Death

Enoch Powell dying sometime before his "Rivers of Blood" speech would do him wonders.

Outside of Tory circles he was effectively a nobody before Rivers of Blood. If he dies before then then he's going to be remembered on practically the same level as Geoffrey Rippon or Peter Thorneycroft. Rivers of Blood, and everything Powell did after then, sharply polarised opinion on him but I don't think you can say it actually diminished his reputation, because he didn't really have one.
 
I don't see why Al Gore is being mentioned in a thread like this, everything he's done post-2000 has only enhanced his reputation. If somebody wants a contemporary Democrat as an example, then John Edwards would fit the criteria due to his blunders since 2004.

Charles Lindbergh is another possibility. Imagine if he had been the target of the Crime of the Century. He would be such a tragic hero, I bet he would be on some sort of US currency by now.

On gore

Sex scandal?


Revealed conflicts of interest in his business holdings and political agenda
 
He was never a skilled businessman. He's the worst kind. Hell, he's gone bankrupt like 5 times!


True enough, he inherited all his money from his daddy and is not richer than when he started. If he were a "skilled businessman" he would have have at least double the amount of money when he started in inflation adjusted dollars. It is far easier to turn $10 million into $20 million than turning $100 to $200!
 
Pablo Picasso if he'd died sometime during WW2. If it works out he could be a martyr and we would avoid his postwar "eh, let's phone it in and lounge on the beach" phase.
 
I have heard that if Benedict Arnold would have died at Saratoga or shortly after, he'd be the second greatest American hero of the Revolution, second only to Washington.

Does that sound right?
 
Wrong thread. In this context he'd be the bungling idiot who failed to notice a warning of an invasion and went from Inchon to a complete disaster. Unless you meant in the fall of 1950 in which case this would be accurate.

Yes, sorry about that. Right after the Americans captured Seoul is what I meant.
 
I have heard that if Benedict Arnold would have died at Saratoga or shortly after, he'd be the second greatest American hero of the Revolution, second only to Washington.

Does that sound right?

Maybe not as famous as that (he'd be overshadowed by the founding fathers) but he'd certainly be known as a great American hero.
 
Mikhail Gorbachev
Boris Yeltsin

Both good men, who initially changed Russia for the better but then found its problems to be beyond their abilities to solve. In both cases, after about 2 years in power would be optimal for ther reputations.

Other people have already picked the best U.S. presidential examples (Hoover, Wilson, Bush the elder), but add U.S Grant to the list. Excellent general, mediocre president. At a lower level, James Buchanan, who would have been (barely) remembered today as a competent public servant if he had died before becoming president.

Oldie-but-goodie: Charles XII of Sweden. Brilliantly successful general in his early reign. Outnumbered by a formidable coalition of Poland, Denmark, Russia and a rebellion in Sweden's Ingrian territories, he defeated them all. He would have been remembered as a genius if he had died before his loss at Poltava.

Music: Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder if they died before making Ebony and Ivory.
 
Maybe not as famous as that (he'd be overshadowed by the founding fathers) but he'd certainly be known as a great American hero.
Greatest American hero, not wise man.

Basically above Paul Revere and John Paul Jones, closer to Washington. That's a nice place to be.
 
eamon de valera dies during the Irish war of independence, He would be rememberd as a Irish hero, and not as the man who started a civil war becouse he didint get what he wanted.
 
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