HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON put down his camera 30 years ago, but that did little to dim his reputation as a seminal figure in photography.
The latest defeats are likely to continue to dim the reputation of the Congress leader, Sonia Gandhi, widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the Italian-born inheritor of the Gandhi political dynasty.
But time and historians have dimmed his reputation.
The intervening fifteen years have not dimmed his reputation, yet to-day we see him with rather different eyes.
The result has crippled the authority and significantly dimmed its reputation as a businesslike body able to rise above politics and bureaucratic red tape to get things done.
And the fact that his sculptures were invariably delightful to look at may also have dimmed his reputation for those who believe contemporary art must be abrasive to be serious.
The soap opera that is Ms. Palin's family life feeds gossip addicts, and liberals don't miss a chance to mock her — her beauty queen looks, her starlet celebrity and her dim-bulb reputation.
The condemnation of his tract against Peter Lombard by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215 dimmed his reputation for a time, but the appearance of the Franciscan and Dominican mendicant orders, hailed as Joachim's new spiritual men, reestablished him as a prophet.
Although after 1520 the growing religious upheaval of the early Reformation somewhat dimmed his reputation and eventually cost him some of his following, he remained a celebrity for the rest of his life.
Mr. Greenspan, once celebrated as the "maestro" of economic policy, has seen his reputation dim after failing to avert the credit bubble that nearly brought down the financial system.
