In a rare of display of unity, lawmakers and pundits from across the US political spectrum on Friday offered praise for President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

With few exceptions, the address was received as a masterful defense of US policy, including the two wars Obama presides over even as he became a Nobel laureate.

Some of Obama's fiercest critics, including former Alaska governor and one-time Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, complimented the address.

"I liked what he said," Palin told USA Today newspaper, even adding that she had mentioned similar themes about "the fallen nature of man and why war is necessary at times" in her recent book "Going Rogue: An American Life."

"Of course war is the last thing any American I believe wants to have to engage in, but it's necessary. We have to stop these terrorists over there," she added.

Another Obama critic, former Republican House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich told The Takeaway radio program that Obama "did a very good job."

"I thought the speech was actually very good," Gringrich said, praising Obama for saying "that there is evil in the world."

"I thought in some ways it's a very historic speech," he said.

The former lawmaker, who is considered by some a potential candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, said he was pleased that a "liberal president" had reminded the Nobel committee "that they would not be free, they wouldn't be able to have a peace prize, without having force."

Newspapers editorialized largely in favor of Obama's speech, delivered in Oslo Thursday before an audience that included Norway's royal family.

The New York Times described the speech as "both somber and soaring" and said Obama "gave the speech he needed to give."

The White House acknowledged ahead of Obama's speech that he would address the paradox of being awarded a peace prize even as he escalates troop deployments to Afghanistan, and US media praised him for tackling the issue directly.

The Times noted "how often Mr Obama used the war in Afghanistan to make his points," and said his Nobel speech served as an eloquent explanation of his decision to send 30,000 more US troops to the country.

The Los Angeles Times, while reiterating its belief that Obama was awarded the prize too early in his administration, praised his speech as "a blockbuster even by Obama's lofty standards."

It said the address "should serve as a blueprint to guide international decisions on alleviating conflict, poverty and tyranny."

But Obama was not without detractors.

Both Dennis Kucinich, one of Congress' most fervent anti-war lawmakers, and staunchly conservative former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton offered criticism.

Bolton termed the speech "pedestrian, turgid and uninspired" in comments to the conservative National Review Online, while Kucinich sent out a press statement warning against the notion of "just war" that Obama spelled out in his speech.

"Once we wrap doctrines perpetuating war in the arms of justice, we can easily legitimate the wholesale slaughter of innocents," he said.