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Commentators from the US and British media reflect on US President Barack Obama's first speech from the Oval Office, vowing to make BP pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and urging his country to end its "addiction" to fossil fuels.

is one of the few to see much to welcome in the president's remarks:

"Obama was right to say that we are drilling a mile deep in the gulf because we are exhausting, with our voracious energy appetite, safer sources on land or in shallow water. And he was especially right to say that the nightmare of the Gulf oil spill won't end until we find alternatives to our economic dependence on fossil fuels...I liked him better Tuesday night than I have in a while - tired, beat-up politically, but not playing to the crowd with easy put-downs of BP CEO Tony Hayward or profit-mongering Big Oil. There's a glimmer of real leadership there, but not yet the bright beam."

sees little of substance beyond good will in the president's remarks:

"I am really not entirely sure what the point to this Oval Office address was! Were you looking for something that resembled a fully-realized action plan, describing a detailed approach to containment and clean up? Or perhaps a definitive statement, severing the command and control that BP has largely enjoyed, in favor of a structured, centralized federal response? Maybe you were looking for a roadmap-slash-timetable for putting America on a path to a clean energy future? Well, this speech was none of those things."

, sees a feeble effort on the president's part:

"Whatever the reason, Barack Obama gave the most depressing Oval Office speech since Jimmy Carter's malaise speech. He didn't just embrace defeat, he wore it on his suit as a substitute for an argyle sweater. He tried to sound upbeat in the way a cop in a movie might sound when his partner lay mortally wounded and the cop needs to get the partner's wife to the hospital without letting her know her husband is dying. It was a false optimism with Barack Obama distracting Americans in a game of three card monte."

also gave the presiden'ts speech a failing grade.

"It was certainly the worst rally-the-nation speech by a US president I've ever watched, and that includes Nixon's cornered-rat addresses of the early 1970s and - an ominous parallel - Jimmy Carter's fireside chat in April 1977, four months into his presidency, to publicise his Plan for Energy Independence... Of course, Obama said that there will be a set-aside clean-up and compensation fund, financed by BP. He tossed the word "recklessness" in BP's direction. But these were timid little puff-ball punches. There was no mailed fist within the glove, no steely legal language about emergency powers, no threats about BP withholding all dividends."

Across the pond, says Mr Obama missed a great opportunity to use the Oval Office to tell Americans what went wrong in the Gulf and what was being done about it:

"This speech fell well short of the mark rhetorically. The language was too broad and the structure too formulaic to break through the media babble. Being an effective explainer-in-chief is all about tone, word choice, confidence. Obama didn't show much confidence. Toward the end, as he discussed the need for comprehensive energy legislation, he spoke fairly strong words, but somehow his face conveyed that he wasn't really sure Congress would listen to him (or maybe I'm reading into that, since I doubt Congress will on this question)."