You know the one. Back when global warming was the “hip” thing to “fight”, and there was a growing consensus that failure to spend trillions in that “fight” would bring on the second apocalypse, Newty Boy sat on a couch with Nancy Pelosi and called for government action.

Just in case you haven’t seen it, I’ve posted it at the end of this post.

Anyway, Gingrich finally addressed the infamous television ad today:

WESTCOTT: Mr. Speaker, we only have about 10 seconds left. I just want to ask you a question from our Facebook fan page. Do you regret that — doing that global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi?

GINGRICH: Oh, sure. Look, I was, I was trying to make a point that we shouldn’t be afraid to debate the Left, even on the environment, that was obviously misconstrued, and that’s one of the things I probably wouldn’t do again.

Audio of his remarks at the link.

“Misconstrued”? Um, no. He clearly called for government action on global warming, which — again — was the popular thing to do at the time. In the ad, sponsored by Al Gore’s organization, Gingrich said:

PELOSI: Hi! I’m Nancy Pelosi, life-long Democrat and Speaker of the House.

GINGRICH: And I’m Newt Gingrich, life-long Republican and I used to be Speaker of the House.

PELOSI: We don’t always see eye to eye, do we Newt?

GINGRICH: No, but we do agree: our country must take action to address climate change.

PELOSI: We need cleaner forms of energy, and we need them fast.

GINGRICH: If enough of us demand action from our leaders, we can spark the innovation we need.

PELOSI: Go to WeCanSolveIt.org. Together, we can do this.

Transcript courtesy of Ed Morrissey.

Does that sound like a call to debate the left? Which part of “we do agree: our country must take action to address climate change” sounds like “we must debate the left on climate change”? He actually says he agrees with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That’s a call to debate the left?

I don’t think so.

Look, Gingrich is trying to cover his ass. He now knows partnering with Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi in order to push for government action on global warming wasn’t the best political decision he’s ever made. He knows the ad will come back to haunt him in the primary.

But if he wants to overcome the ad, he’ll have to admit he got caught up in the moment and made a mistake. Telling people they didn’t hear what they clearly heard isn’t going to help his cause. He’ll just be seen as a liar on top of being seen as a weak leader.