Columnists Paul Krugman and George Will may not agree on much, but both men came together to bash Newt Gingrich on Sunday's "This Week."
Gingrich has been surging in the GOP polls lately, even as he has come under fire for his ties to mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Both Will and Krugman, however, had little love for the former House speaker.
“It is an amazingly efficient candidacy in that in embodies everything disagreeable about modern Washington,” Will (whose wife consults for Rick Perry) said, running through a long list of problems he had with Gingrich. He also mocked Gingrich's explanation that Freddie Mac had given him over a million dollars to be a "historian" for the company. "He's not a historian!" Will snapped. Later, he piled on more, saying Gingrich was guilty of "absurd rhetorical grandiosity."
Fellow panelist Peggy Noonan came to Gingrich's defense, saying that he had a "fresh" debate strategy and was exciting the Republican base.
Krugman gave a dismissive answer to this assertion.
"The Republican base does not want Romney, and they keep on looking for an alternative," he said. "And Newt, although somebody said he's a stupid man's idea of what a smart man sounds like, but he is more plausible than the other guys that they've been pushing up."
Background on Newt Gingrich:
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