Liberals who support Obama praised his call for better alternatives to war, while retaining the right to self-defense; Conservatives who have criticized Obama’s foreign policy questioned his approach as naive, though some applauded Obama for saying that sometimes force is necessary and just.

At the liberal-leaning New Republic, Jonathan Chait lauded obama for rebuking both the left’s reflexive opposition to any military force as well as the right’s “blinkered nationalism.” Chait notes that “Obama attempted to explain how he blends idealism with diplomatic realism.”

The conservative John Bolton, the U.N. ambassador under President George W. Bush, found Obama’s speech pedestrian, turgid, ann uninspired” Bolton told the National Review website that “the speech was also typical of Obama in its self-centeredness and ‘something for everybody’ approach.”

If you want to see The Oval’s report on the Obama speech, click here. For the president’s remarks in their entirety, look ere. And our website folks have put together a terrific photo gallery on this morning’s events in Oslo.

The Oval’s old pal Joe Klein, on the Time magazine website, writes that Obama “did the nation proud” with a speech that “balanced the rationale for going to war against the need to build a more peaceful and equitable world.”

Joe points to the section of speech in which Obama, the nation’s first African-American president, describes himself an heir to the non-violent revolution of Dr. Martin Luther King,. Jr., another Nobel Peace Prize recipient. But Obama adds that

I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.

By the way, our Gannett colleague Chuck Raasch reports that Obama mentioned “war” at least 44 times and the terms “peace” or “peaceful” at least 32 times.

And not all conservatives are critical.

Peter Wehner, a director of “strategic initiatives” in the Bush White House, writes on National Review that that while some of Obama’s remarks were “simplistic and pedantic and much too long,” the speech a whole was “significant and heartening.” Wehner notes that Obama “praised the United States for the burden it has borne and the sacrifices it has made on behalf of peace, justice, and stability.”

William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, blogs here about the similarities between Obama and George W. Bush on the specter of nuclear terrorism.

In many ways, Obama’s speech and his approach to foreign policy echo that of Woodrow Wilson, the president who led America through World War I (and also won a Nobel Peace Prize).

Historian John Milton Cooper, Jr., who has written a terrific new biography of Wilson, writes of the parallels on The Daily Beast website. Writes Cooper: “Obama, like Wilson, has drawn both praise and condemnation for his soaring rhetoric, but, like Wilson, he looks for practical, down-to-earth measures to advance his ideals.”