New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says that Newt Gingrich is just the latest of the “fools and clowns” in the Republican presidential race to become a frontrunner.

“I have a structural hypothesis here,” Krugman told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour Sunday. “You have a Republican ideology, which Mitt Romney obviously doesn’t believe in. He just oozes insincerity, that’s just so obvious. But all of the others are fools and clowns. And there is a question here, my hypothesis is that maybe this is an ideology that only fools and clowns can believe in. And that’s the Republican problem.”

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Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan spoke up in Gingrich’s defense.

“We need a little on the pro-Newt side balance,” she remarked. “The base of the Republican Party knows that the establishment of the Republican Party doesn’t like Newt. That’s a big plus.”

“It was his time,” Krugman explained. “The Republican base does not want Romney and they keep on looking for an alternative. And Newt, although — somebody said, ‘He’s a stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.’ But he is more plausible than the other guys they’ve been pushing up.”

Watch this video from ABC’s This Week, broadcast Nov. 20, 2011.