Even wise people make mistakes. Gingrich later admitted that this was a huge error.
It still makes me think of him as a person without core principles that sticks his finger in the wind to determine what to be. At the time he made that commercial the Climate Change religion was riding high. A lot of RINOs thought the way to win was to join the Climate Change church.
Easy to say it was stupid later when the political winds on this religion started blowing the other way.