By Sebastian Usher BBC world media correspondent

The Arab press did not appear to share President Bush's excitement

There has been, perhaps surprisingly, not that much on President George W Bush's speech in the Arab press.

As with the rest of the world's media, the story is mostly the lead, but there is little beyond straight reporting of what he had to say.

In the Saudi-owned Al-Sharq al-Awsat, which is read and respected across the Arab world, the celebrations of Eid are given more prominence than the American president's speech.

The photo the paper has chosen of Mr Bush is perhaps its most significant comment - it shows him with his head thrown back in a big, happy smile, giving an impression more of self-satisfaction than presidential determination.

Inside, the paper runs a cartoon of Mr Bush dressed in an outfit made up of logos from America's biggest businesses like fast-good giant McDonalds.

The analysis by Al-Sharq al-Awsat's Washington correspondent says the liberty Mr Bush promises to foster is just the freedom for US businesses to grow even more and spread the "American way".

More of the same

Another newspaper read widely in the Arab world, the independent Al-Quds al-Arabi, sees Mr Bush's key pledge to fight world tyranny being directed mainly at Arab leaders.

The paper, which is known for its attacks on the Arab political elite, says oppressive Arab regimes - among them American allies - should feel "very worried" about his speech if it becomes reality.

But the paper's outspoken editor, Abdul Bari Atwan, chose not to comment on the speech at all, concentrating instead on a Jordanian story.

Perhaps because of Eid, a number of Arab newspapers have been slow to update their editions with coverage of the speech.

The main news networks, like al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, did have live coverage of the inauguration and discussion programmes afterwards.

But there is an inescapable sense of indifference for the moment at least in the Arab world over Mr Bush's speech - a sense that it was just more of the same.

This is perhaps best illustrated by the response the BBC Arabic service received when it contacted both the Arab League and Syrian ambassadors in the US for comment - they said they had nothing to say as they had not watched it.