Some harsh words for Newt Gingrich from the 'This Week' panel this Sunday.

Or they would be harsh if one got the sense anyone on the panel was taking Gingrich's candidacy seriously.

George Will summed up Newt as "the classic rental politician."

Gingrich is an amazingly efficient candidacy in that it embodies almost everything disagreeable about modern Washington...People think his problem is his colorful personal life. He's going to hope people concentrate on that, rather than on, for example, ethanol. Al Gore has recanted ethanol, not -- Newt Gingrich has served the ethanol lobby. Industrial policy of the sort that got us Solyndra, he's all for it. Freddie Mac, he says, hired him as a historian. He's not a historian. Hire Sean Wilentz, hire Gordon Wood if you want a historian

Meanwhile Paul Krugman thinks he may be the idiot's candidate, but far less so than some of the others currently running:

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 man sounds like, but he is more plausible than the other guys that they've been pushing up.

[h/t Mediaite]