Dear Jolt Fans,

Well, it’s Spy Wednesday, but if you’re looking for something to celebrate, how about . . . Happy Birthday to one of the game’s greatest pinch hitters, Daniel Joseph “Rusty” Staub?! Here he is, “Le Grand Orange,” long ago and far away, when baseball teams were named after guns:

Such controversy! As might be: Who will (or won’t) bake Rusty’s birthday cake? My advice, Rusty, is stick to store-bought and preclude an uproar.

Anyway, on with the pinch hitting for Jim Geraghty, who is R-&-Ring, likely sitting under the shade of a palm tree, one can only hope writing a sequel to The Weed Agency.

Anything Andy McCarthy writes (I’d wager even a grocery list), is worth reading. His piece asking “Why Won’t the Benghazi Committee Compel Hillary to Testify?” is a big and deserved smack upside the head of Trey Gowdy. Hey Mr. Chairman, if your . . .

“. . . investigation is to be serious, it needs to be taken seriously by the people from whom information must be pried. That means Mrs. Clinton should not be invited to have a private conversation with committee staff about her improper private e-mail system. She should be compelled to testify under oath. A good investigator is not indulgent of a recalcitrant witness who is making a mockery of the investigative process. He uses the tools the law gives him to make it crystal clear that that he is not running a kangaroo court. He makes certain that witnesses and the public understand that the law requires compliance with congressional-committee demands for information. This shouldn’t be a case of Gowdy asking Clinton to please do him a favor.

Related, filed under “The Dog Ate My Server,” is Andrew Johnson’s look into The Five Worst Clinton E-mail Excuses.

Kevin D. Williamson (same about the grocery list) takes on liberal criticism of the new (liberal!) host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, Trevor Noah. Get your waders on and enjoy “Mr. Noah and the Flood,” KDW’s expose of the Left’s turn-on-itself hypocrisy.

Conrad Black is always a must-read. Today’s column on Obama’s Iran Initiative is no exception, a smart critique of the administration’s fantasy that its Iran foray is somehow a sequel to Nixon’s China gambit. I love how Conrad corrals things into one stuffed and beautifully written and informative paragraph. Like:

The West’s policies have failed: in the containment of Russia in Ukraine and in the opening to Iran. But the astounding combination of the House of Saud (and its domestic Wahhabi partners) and the most unpopular Israeli leader in the history of the White House may secure Middle East peace in the wake of the failure of its traditional guardians. Truly, in this Easter and Passover season, God (through strange bedfellows and unlikely proxies) may be about to bless America and the impotent West.

On Indiana today: Jonah and KLO and Andrew Walker and Quin Hillyer.

Check out the Photoshop of the Day. You need to own a copy of Jay Nordlinger’s acclaimed Nobel Prize history, Peace, They Say. You need to send someone a National Review gift subscription. And you also need to own some original Roman Genn artwork — maybe this political portrait, perhaps?

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Same Bat Time tomorrow, good people. And to Jim, wherever you are, know that your fans are praying that Monday comes quickly.

God bless,

Jack Fowler

Publisher