President Obama will discuss the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and his vision for the nation's energy future at 8 p.m. ET in his first-ever address from the Oval Office. Think of it as the equivalent of the nation being called into the principal's office.

Whenever presidents invite us into their 101-year-old inner sanctum (President William Howard Taft was the first to use the Oval Office in 1909), it's generally not good news.

Some recent examples:

* July 15, 1979: Jimmy Carter discusses the nation's "erosion of confidence" in what later became known as the "malaise speech."
* January 28, 1986: Ronald Reagan addresses the nation on the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.
* January 16, 1991: George H.W. Bush announces the opening of war in the Persian Gulf, as the U.S. and its allies attempt to repel Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
* December 16, 1998: Bill Clinton announces air strikes on Iraq.
* September 11, 2001: George W. Bush discusses the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Look for the president to detail his administration's effort to respond to what he's seen on this week's two-day trip to the Gulf, his fourth visit to the region since the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew on April 20. And look for him to renew his push for comprehensive energy legislation designed to move the nation away from fossil fuels.

On Monday, the president moved to activate his campaign network on the issue. In an email, he asked supporters to push for Senate passage of an energy bill sponsored by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. "This is an issue that Washington has long ignored in favor of protecting the status quo," the president wrote. "If we refuse to heed the warnings from the disaster in the Gulf -- we will have missed our best chance to seize the clean-energy future we know America needs to thrive in the years and decades to come."

It's a two-speech day for the president. He's waking up in Pensacola, Fla., where he'll deliver remarks later this morning to military personnel at the Pensacola Naval Air Techical Training Center. Then he'll return to Washington to deliver his nationally televised address.

Our sister paper, the Pensacola News Journal, is reporting that Obama is expected to inspect the Pensacola beach before leaving town.

The president has done his bit to promote Gulf seafood on his latest tour of the region. Before arriving in Pensacola, he enjoyed his second fish feast of the day at Tacky Jack's Restaurant in Orange Beach, Ala.

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