This simple arithmetic – 2+2=4 – was a rallying cry during the Polish Solidarity freedom movement in the 1980s. It meant that, even though the government would try to tell the people that 2+2=5, to be free, the people had to tell the truth, that 2+2=4. Because to deny the truth was to deny reality, and to do that was to surrender freedom to the government.

Something similar is happening with the global warming bill.

Gingrich also sneaks some strange global warming denialism into the column. He doubts that “the case is closed on man’s role in causing climate change, as the left assure us that it is.” But two short years ago Gingrich wrote a book titled “A Contract With the Earth” in which he made this point:

Liberal politicians and many academics don’t trust conservatives or industry to control or reduce carbon emissions that contribute to the warming trend most climate experts have documented.

So: Do “carbon emissions that contribute to the warming trend most climate experts have documented?” Or is the case not “closed” yet? What number did Gingrich get the last time he added 2 and 2?

I’m just thinking of President Reagan — he engaged fully with the Soviet Union to great effect while at the same time describing them as an evil empire, saying they would end up on the ash heap of history. That’s not a bad model.