Never forget you're talking to a bunch of six-year-olds

If yo're a politician, that is. If you do forget this, and say something that is too hard for a six year old to understand, you'll get reactions like this:

When the president skittered back from his grandiose declaration at an iftar celebration at the White House Friday that Muslims enjoy freedom of religion in America and have the right to build a mosque and community center in Lower Manhattan, he offered a Clintonesque parsing.

“I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,” he said the morning after he commented on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”

Let me be perfectly clear, Mr. Perfectly Unclear President: You cannot take such a stand on a matter of first principle and then take it back the next morning when, lo and behold, Harry Reid goes craven and the Republicans attack.

This is embarrassing, really. Dowd actually does not understand that there's a huge difference between saying "You have a legal right to do X" and "It's a great idea for you to do X, and I support it." When offered a clarification, she doesn't understand that, either, and thinks it's a retraction.

And, of course, she's not alone in her stupidity.