Republican presidents take a beating from the press and still praise them for their professionalism, even when some of them don't deserve it. Democratic presidents can be just the opposite: The media coverage is generally good, yet still they whine. Bill Clinton expected the royal treatment, and mostly received it. When he didn't, he was furious. (Remember him denouncing the "knee-jerk liberal press" in Rolling Stone?) President Bush received about a month of respect -- right after Sept. 11. Clinton was treated with respect by reporters even after he was impeached.

For eight years, President Bush rarely raised a peep of public protest against the media's partisanship (save his sneaky photo holding a copy of Bernard Goldberg's insider expose, "Bias.") Now, even as he praised the media's professionalism, his resentment at the inaccuracy of long-established liberal media templates erupted in his final press conference.

Bush grew agitated as he remembered the press pounding him for seeing Hurricane Katrina damage from the sky on Air Force One without landing in Louisiana. He said -- correctly -- that had he actually landed in Baton Rouge, it would have required police to leave the disaster scene to protect him, and reporters would have savaged him for that. No matter what the president did or didn't do, he was going to be attacked.

The president was also very animated in protesting the media's similar no-win approach to terrorist surveillance. After 9/11, the executive branch was excoriated by the press for having failed to make the al-Qaeda connections and prevent it all. "And then we start putting policy in place -- legal policy in place to connect the dots, and all of a sudden people were saying, How come you're connecting the dots?'"

Bush's media critics are crowing about his legacy lying in tatters. Bush responds with his stubborn confidence that history will vindicate his administration. But how to explain Bush's sudden interest in interviews? With only days left before the moving vans file out, he's decided to go public and publicly defend himself.

Why didn't he start doing this seven years ago, when it would have mattered?