From the Ethics Alarms glossary: “Signature Significance: The concept is the creation of baseball statistics genius Bill James, who applied it to baseball performance. Signature significance posits that a single act can be so remarkable that it has predictive and analytical value, and should not be dismissed as statistically insignificant. Thus, in James’ example, certain outstanding pitching performances can prove that the pitcher involved is an outstanding one, because average pitchers literally never reach such levels of excellence, even as a one-time fluke.” 

As regular readers here know, Ethics Alarms often employs the term to describe an extreme ethical or unethical act that similarly reveals the true character of the individual responsible for the conduct, and that can be reliably and fairly used to predict future conduct and trustworthiness. To cite a recent example, SCOTUS Justice Sotomayor’s hysterical dissent in Trump v. US is, all by itself, proof that she’s not qualified to be on the Court and a poor jurist. A competent judge wouldn’t write such an opinion, not even one of them. “Well, it’s just one bad dissent” doesn’t let her off the hook. The dissent is so terrible, emotion-wrought, wrong on the law and logically flawed that i a competent Justice couldn’t possibly put her name on such offal, even on the most deranged day of her life. It’s signature significance.

But as baseball giveth, baseball taketh away. Yesterday, the game presented a vivid example of how what seems like signature significance sometimes isn’t.

Jose Miranda of the Minnesota Twins, a 25-year old infielder, tied the MLB record for most consecutive hits. He got his 12th hit in a row, raising his batting average to a near league-lading .331. Amazing. No player had done that in 70 years.

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We should perhaps begin with the fascinating question of why Donna Brazile is still paid by anyone to be an an on-air political commentator and alleged “expert.” She was fired by CNN for leaking debate questions in advance to Hillary Clinton in 2016, but now that I think about it: cheating to beat Donald Trump, or Republican candidates generally, is considered a sign of character by the news networks—Donna was just a bit over-enthusiastic that time, and besides, she got caught.

Donna bounced back, of course: now she’s a regular on ABC’s Sunday Morning “Powerhouse Roundtable.” What credentials Donna has! She’s managed or been a major player in the Presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson and Dick Gephard, losers all. But the fact that she unerringly picks candidates who shouldn’t be President hasn’t marred her reputation as an “expert”; it rests on the same foundation as Karine Jean-Pierre’s reputation as a great White House Press Secretary despite being, you know, completely incompetent. Donna’s historic. Brazile was the first African American woman to direct a major presidential campaign when she helped Al Gore lose in 2000.

And she was in top form yesterday. Asked by George Stephanopolis if Historic VP Kamala Harris would automatically be the Democrats’ nominee if the party decided that it probably wasn’t a good idea to try to elect a demented President, Brazile enlightened everyone thusly,

“It would be very difficult to replace somebody who’s been vetted, who knows the job and has done a tremendous — I think she’s done a tremendous job and to ask the delegates elected to the convention, who are Biden-Harris supporters, to bypass Kamala Harris because some Republicans and a few others may not like her, it would be political malpractice. As I tell everyone, Kamala Harris has earned the right to be considered if — I mean, we got a lot of “what if” scenarios. But- she’s strong.  She’s down in Louisiana… she had a rally last night with 60,000 people.  I’ve heard from so many folks including my family- they say she’s fired up and ready to go. And they’re not going to replace her.”

Wow! Harris had a rally that 60,000 people attended! Heck, even Biden and Trump can’t attract that many supporters. And all those polls say she’s not popular: clearly, Biden was spot-on that the polls being completely wrong about everything unless they show support for Democratic policies and politicians.

Good ol’ Donna. There was no Kamala Harris “rally” in Louisiana. The 30th Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans held a concert in the Caesar’s Superdome, and Harris appeared briefly on stage. Calling this a Harris rally is spectacular misrepresentation. I once was a speaker at an Amway meeting at the Atlanta Omni, with 10,000 greedy wackos in the audience. I guess I should put on my CV that 10,000 people came to hear Jack Marshall speak. (And they liked me! They really liked me!)

Naturally, neither George nor any other “powerhouse” at the table pointed out for their audience’s benefit that Donna had just spewed pure hooey into the air, not even counting her ridiculous assessment that Harris has been a “tremendous” Veep.

It would be nice if someone had this whopper ready to mention the next time Brazile says that Donald Trump lies all the time, but you know that won’t happen.

Yeah, I woke up cranky this morning. Sorry. I just need a cup of coffee…