There's an interesting piece by Jay Rosen about how the internet weakens the authority of the Washington press. The Rosen piece fits nicely with the Bag's take on Bush Jr.'s last presser:

The painful awkwardness of the entire episode -- the press briefing itself, but also the way it summed up and exposed a dysfunctional presidency -- is plain on the faces of the reporters. Looking at the pregnant image from today's NYT above, what do you do in that moment but simply stare straight ahead and wait until the man is gone?

But along with that dysfunctional presidency was a dysfunctional White House press corps all too willing in 2002 and 2003 to hitch its wagon to the war president. Instead of asking the hard questions, they went along for the ride. If the press were embarrassed for the president, I hope they were also embarrassed for themselves.

Yes, the internets weakened the authority of the Washington press. But the internets didn't force the Washington press to so blindly cheerlead such a foolish and deadly war, and such a foolish and deadly president. An awful lot of the press' "authority" went down the toilet with the Bush Jr. presidency.