Burke, perpetual dupe, I say. But then, if they were willing to rehabilitate him in that way, they wouldn't have hestitated to do the same for Barnabas, a much better character... which they did... but then we couldn't have counted on them to know that could we? Mr. Rugged and Down-to-Earth was usually seen as the ideal hero, until the public would knock sense into producers' heads.
I've never seen pre-Barnabas, so I don't know Mitch. The list for me is growing of all the implausible moral about-faces throughout DS, in both directions.