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Let's Talk - On the eve of the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, President Obama will address the nation about another terrorist threat: ISIL. In a Sept. 7 interview on NBC's Meet the Press, he gave a preview of his strategy, explained why he won't act on immigration before the midterm elections and acknowledged that hitting the links after an American has been beheaded overseas is not a good look – even if you are technically on vacation. Here are 10 key takeaways. — Joyce Jones (@BETpolitichick) (Photo: Meet the Press via NBC)

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The Pitch - "I'll make a speech and describe what our game plan's going to be going forward. But this is not going to be an announcement about U.S. ground troops. This is not the equivalent of the Iraq war," Obama said. "What this is is similar to the kinds of counterterrorism campaigns that we've been engaging in consistently over the last five, six, seven years. And the good news is that because of American leadership, we have I believe, a broad-based coalition internationally and regionally to be able to deal with the problem." (Photo: Meet the Press via NBC)

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The Stakes - "I want everybody to understand that we have not seen any immediate intelligence about threats to the homeland from ISIL. That's not what this is about," the president explained. "What it's about is an organization that, if allowed to control significant amounts of territory, to amass more resources, more arms to attract more foreign fighters, including from areas like Europe, who have Europeans who have visas and then can travel to the United States unimpeded, that over time, that can be a serious threat to the homeland." (Photo: Rami Al Sayed/AFP/Getty Images)

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Message to Congress - "This speech will allow Congress, I think, to understand very clearly and very specifically what it is that we are doing but also what we're not doing. We're not looking at sending in 100,000 American troops," Obama said. "We are going to be as part of an international coalition, carrying out air strikes in support of work on the ground by Iraqi troops, Kurdish troops. We are going to be helping to put together a plan for them, so that they can start retaking territory that ISIL had taken over." (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

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Bottom Line - "There's going to be an economic element to this. There's going to be a political element to it. There's going to be a military element to it. And what I want people to understand, though, is that over the course of months, we are going to be able to not just blunt the momentum of ISIL. We are going to systematically degrade their capabilities. We're going to shrink the territory that they control. And ultimately we're going to defeat 'em," said the president. (Photo: Meet the Press via NBC)

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We Are Not a Serial Occupier - "[We] cannot, over the long term or even the medium term, deal with this problem by having the United States serially occupy various countries all around the Middle East. We don't have the resources. It puts enormous strains on our military. And at some point, we leave. And then things blow up again," Obama said. "So we've got to have a more sustainable strategy, which means the boots on the ground have to be Iraqi. And in Syria, the boots on the ground have to be Syrian." (Photo: AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

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The Ebola Crisis - "We're going to have to get U.S. military assets just to set up, for example, isolation units and equipment there, to provide security for public health workers surging from around the world. If we do that, then it's still going to be months before this problem is controllable in Africa. But it shouldn't reach our shores," Obama said. "If we don't make that effort now, and this spreads not just through Africa but other parts of the world, there's the prospect then that the virus mutates. It becomes more easily transmittable. And then it could be a serious danger to the United States. This is an example of where U.S. leadership is important in dealing with crisis." (Photo: AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)

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Immigration and Election Year Politics - "The truth of the matter is that the politics did shift midsummer because of [the migrant children] problem. I want to spend some time, even as we're getting all our ducks in a row for the executive action, I also want to make sure that the public understands why we're doing this, why it's the right thing for the American people, why it's the right thing for the American economy," said the president. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

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Changing Places? - "There's a sharp difference between the Democratic agenda and the Republican agenda. And the American people need to know that. If you've got a Democratic Senate, that means bills are being introduced to raise the minimum wage. That's something Democrats support," Obama said, adding equal pay, funding college education, infrastructure to the list. "[If] the House stays Republican, that it's unlikely that I get a lot of these bills to my desk. But it makes a big difference if we've got at least one branch in Congress that is presenting these ideas, making arguments." (Photos from left: AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Photo By Photos from left: AP Photo/ Evan Vucci

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Point Taken: Optics Do Count - "There's no doubt that — after having talked to the families, where it was hard for me to hold back tears listening to the pain that they were going through, after the statement that I made, that you know, I should've anticipated the optics. You know, that's part of the job," said the president of criticism about his golfing after announcing the beheading of journalist James Foley. "And you know, I think everybody who knows me, including, I suspect, the press, understands that that you know, you take this stuff in. And it's serious business [and] you care about it deeply. But part of this job is also the theatre of it. A part of it is, you know, how are you, how, how are you, well, it's not something that — that always comes naturally to me. But it matters. And I'm mindful of that." (Photos from left: Rick Friedman-Pool/Getty Im...