Joe Klein: “The best that can be said about the president tonight is that he survived, too, yet another very difficult moment in his presidency.”

Fareed Zakaria: “For an eloquent president, this was remarkably workmanlike, but I think that it was an intelligent speech in that he was balancing various problems.”

William Kristol: “He did — probably as much as an anti-Iraq war president could—nod both to the justice and the achievement of the war.”

Charles Krauthammer: “The speech was both flat and odd.”

Keith Olbermann: “That’s an economic speech that happened to be titled Iraq.”

E.J. Dionne: “He’s hoping that the median American voter will say it was a Goldilocks speech that got the balance right.”