Dear Jolt Aficionados, While Big Jim plays hookey on the beaches of the Palmetto State, we'll pull a Manny Mota and pinch hit. 
There's lots going on today at NationalReview.com, and let's go to the obvious: The top piece on the home page is "Obama's Chicago Presidency" by Victor Davis Hanson. I like this selection: Malice is a valuable political tool for Barack Obama. Benjamin Netanyahu apparently bothered President Obama. What could that possibly entail, given the historic alliance between Israel and the United States? From the petty malice of Obama-administration aides leaking slurs that Netanyahu was a coward and chickens–t to the fundamental malevolence of community-organizing Netanyahu's opponents in an effort to defeat him at the polls to leaking previously classified information about Israel's nuclear deterrent, the message is again Chicagoan. Obama in adolescent fashion put it best in the 2008 campaign when he urged his flock, "I want you to argue with them and get in their face," and when he later lifted a Chicago line from screenwriter David Mamet's dialogue in The Untouchables to say to his base, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." No wonder Obama — despite having once been on the receiving end of a racial slur from Senator Harry Reid — recently praised the outgoing Senate majority leader, whose style and modus operandi were akin to Obama's own. Nearby, in Indiana, the good folks there are ducking as the indignati lob mortar shells of moral superiority. Rich Lowry, in his must-read new column, writes "The anti-Indiana backlash is a perfect storm of hysteria and legal ignorance, supercharged by the particularly censorious self-righteousness of the Left." Amen! Another must-read is Charlie Cooke's Corner observation on the controversy: "I have been struck by something rather interesting: namely, by how abundantly happy people who are usually critical of corporations have been to recruit them to their side in this case." Then there's this: "The notorious anti-Israel propagandist Max Blumenthal has accused women's-rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali of 'deception.' Unfortunately for Blumenthal, it is his own latest deception that has now come to light." Sound intriguing? It is. Daniel Mael's article on the smug journalist is worth your while. It's Holy Week, so if you'd like something appropriately inspiring, consider Rod Dreher's terrific essay, "Dante and Holy Week." Over at the Bookmonger, John J. Miller is interviewing Roy Morris Jr. about his new book, American Vandal: Mark Twain Abroad. Today is the last day to get your special $50 per-person cabin credit on the National Review cruise. What do you mean you haven't booked your cabin yet?! Do that right now at www.nrcruise.com. Okay, that should be enough to whet your whistle. See you tomorrow when I don my Rusty Staub uniform and swing for the fences in the Spy Wednesday edition of the Morning Jolt. Best, Jack Fowler Publisher | 
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