Yo, Dana — What’s With All The “Terra Terra Terra”?

Q Dana, I have questions on two topics. Today’s speech — what’s the strategic value in discussing the tactics of the enemy? What’s to be gained by that, and why now?

MS. PERINO: I think it’s important that everyone recognize who we are dealing with.

[snip]

Q Well, just to quickly follow up on that, it’s five years, almost, into the war. Is there a sense from the White House that the American people has kind of lost track of this? People don’t know who the enemy is by this point?

MS. PERINO: No, no, I don’t think is the case, but I think that it is incumbent upon the Commander-in-Chief, when we are fighting a war, to keep the American people apprised of the situation, especially when we have tens of thousands of our men and women in uniform who are fighting for us, to remind the American people why we are there, and give them a progress report and status report as to where we stand and whether or not we need to change gears in order to further build on security gains, such as in Iraq — or continue to work with our NATO partners in Afghanistan to make sure that we can beat back the Taliban as a alliance.