John Barnes

“I’ve got ten thousand ducks quacking and waddling, with one deluded chicken that thinks it’s a duck in the middle. I think it’s a flock of ducks; Cam thinks it’s a malign conspiracy of chickens.”
― John Barnes, Directive 51

“Mitt Romney's first interview with Zombie Reagan:
Mitt Romney came in with cheerful assurance, because he wasn’t capable of anything else. “Let me first welcome you back to this side of the veil, Mr. President.”
“Yeah, Mitt, it’s good to see you looking so well. Your father says hello, and he wanted me to add specially that whatever unfortunate negative things you might remember him saying to you when you were a kid, he always tried to tell you the truth and he hopes you’ve used it to improve, and he understands that even with the help of those comments, it might just not have been in you to improve. He wants you to remember he still loves you no matter what you’ve become, or even if you haven’t chosen to become any one thing in particular.”
“That’s very kind. I miss my dad even now.”
“Oh, so do I. I remember George as always that kind of guy, he had your back, whenever you’d think to watch your back, you’d find him somewhere around there, ready for action with that knife already drawn.”
― John Barnes, Raise the Gipper!

“Newt Gingrich, Reagan reflected, had never in his life fit properly into a suit. He still looked like the fat, despised, teacher’s-pet, suck-up junior debating whiz who was going to fall apart in his senior year, except he was now fifty years past it. Back when I was alive, he had that same querulous expression of a guy who didn’t understand two big things:

1. being smart doesn’t make you popular, and
2. even if it did, he isn’t smart enough for it to work for him.
He remembered trying to explain it to Nancy, who had told him that, “Ronnie, granted that Newt is sometimes irritating, you have to admit he’s brighter than most Congressmen—”
“So is every horse out at Rancho del Cielo, Mommy, and half the rocks for that matter,” he’d said.”
― John Barnes, Raise the Gipper!

“Fox News gets to the heart of the Zombie Reagan story:

Well, Jeremy, of course on line polls are not at all scientific, in fact they’re pretty much completely bogus and in this case it’s one that was made up on the spot by a high school student, but we all know that misleading non-information is always better than dead air, so here goes. The earliest survey taken since the rather startling resurrection of the former president is looking awfully good for the challenger and awfully not good for President Obama.”
― John Barnes, Raise the Gipper!