You can watch live coverage on MSNBC. Chuck Todd of NBC News speculates as to what the committee will do. Dan Balz of the Washington Post previews the meeting, and notes, “Clinton will send her team to today’s meeting with a demand that the full delegations from both states be seated in Denver, that each of those delegates be given a full vote and that the delegates be allocated strictly on the basis of the results of the two primaries. But while she has drawn a hard line in the pre-meeting maneuvering, her advisers stopped short yesterday of threatening to take the fight beyond today.” Katherine Q. Seelye of the New York Times highlights a five-hour meeting held on Friday night in advance of today’s meeting.

UPDATE: Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post is live-blogging from the meeting.

UPDATE II: Florida and Michigan delegates each get half of a vote.  The net result was a gain of 87 delegate votes for Clinton and 63 for Obama. Until yesterday’s action, the magic number for winning the nomination was 2,026 delegates. Now the winner will need 2,118. According to a count by the Associated Press, as of last night, Obama controlled 2,052 delegates to Clinton’s 1,877, reports the Washington Post.

Thankfully, a Finals I can watch. The Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics meet for the championship for the first time since the 1986-87 season. This also marks the third professional sport that a team from Boston will play for the title. The Red Sox swept the Rockies for the MLB championship. The Patriots fell to the Giants in the Super Bowl.

The DNC Rules and and Bylaws Committee meets tomorrow to determine what to do with the Florida and Michigan delgations.  The committee will consider proposals to seat 50% of the pledged delgates and all of the superdelegates from each state. 

Reid Wilson of Real Clear Politics notes that Clinton wants all of the delegates seated (despite a memo from DNC lawyers that says such a decision would violate party rules), “Clinton’s team wants both delegations allocated in full, which would give her an additional 73 of the 128 delegates in Michigan and somewhere around 110 of the 185 delegates in Florida.”

Chuck Todd, appearing on “Morning Joe” today said that no-matter what happens, Barack Obama will still have a substantial lead in the delegate count.  Still, he thinks the fifty-percent compromise will go through.

Observes Reid, “The most likely scenario would have Florida allocate their delegates, with half a vote each, based on the initial primary results. That would give Clinton 56 additional votes at the convention and Obama 37 votes. The Michigan Democrats’ appeal to the committee suggests a ten-delegate advantage for Clinton as a solution to that state’s contest, in which Obama removed his name from the ballot. Divided in half, that would be an additional 34.5 votes for Clinton and 29.5 votes for Obama.”

What’s the next step?  Clinton could take the fight all the way to convention and demand, from the floor, that a vote be taken to seat all of the delegates with full voting ability.  That’s unlikely, of course, but would be the option of last resort.

Does anyone else find it curious that Arkansan and DNC Vice Chair Lottie Shackleford remains an uncommitted superdelegate?

For those of you comfortably removed from the 2000 presidential election, you probably haven’t been thinking about Florida electioneering.  For the rest of us that have seen “Recount” multiple times, it’s top of mind.  And for a few more folks in Arkansas it’s certainly of interest because Henry Woods, a former staffer for Sen. Dale Bumpers and Sen. David Pryor is throwing his hat into the ring running for Monroe County Supervisor of Elections.

For years, Woods ran the internship program for Pryor.  He retired to Key West where he teaches and dabbles in local politics.  Woods attended the University of Arkansas and was the editor of the Razorback.  Several years back, some good people established the Henry Woods Award which honors an outstanding senior leader on campus.  Clinton School of Public Service and UA systems communications chief Ben Beamont is a recipient.

Under the Dome chief and House Majority Leader Steve Harrelson updates his photo album and stumbles across a photo of us standing next to Air Force One. We were in Little Rock working together on a fundraiser for Vice President Al Gore at the time, if I recall. It was back in the summer of 1999, and the temperature was well over 100 degrees at the Little Rock Air Force Base. Steve was finishing up his legal studies at the Bowen School of Law at UALR and I was on my way back to the northeast to live out my final days at Middlebury before heading to Fayetteville.

Now we’re blogging . . . among other things.

For the Harvard/Boston crowd, the Harvard Book Store is for sale.  I was last in this bookstore in the winter of 2005.  I was in Boston for a wedding and to visit my sister who was doing a semester at Harvard after Hurrican Katrina swept through New Orleans and her Tulane campus.  I bought Ian McEwan’s then-latest book “Saturday.”  There’s no telling what will happen when the bookstore is sold, but I found this comment from the owner, Frank Kramer, interesting:

“It is no secret that independent bookstores across the country are losing some of their book sales to the internet and other media. Despite this trend, people continue to need and enjoy a physical place in their communities and in travel destinations where the world of ideas and the literary mind are celebrated. Harvard Book Store has been that place for 75 years because we have sought out books and other products that our customers will buy. We will only remain profitable if we keep doing that.”

Speaking of interesting bookstores, the New Yorker notes this book-buying experience facilitated by Michael Seidenberg in New York.  “He envisions a hangout, where readers can relax in comfortable chairs with a favorite book,” the story notes.  Although Seidenberg does this in three room apartment (whose address is known only by a certain crowd), and by appointment only.  It’s certainly one way to go . . .

Crimson professor Robert Darnton has an interesting piece in the New York Review of Books on the future of the library in the age of Google.

Speaking of books, Seidenberg recounts this story when he was selling books on the street,

“Once, a couple stopped, and the man asked his girlfriend, ‘Do you want a book?’ She said, ‘No, I already have a book.’ ”

Former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan’s book has been the hot topic of the last 24 hours.  It’s quickly jumped to No. 1 on amazon.com.  It’s brought swift reaction from the White House, which is absolutely no surprise.  Karl Rove’s comment that McClellan sounds like a “left wing blogger” was pretty funny.  Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post assesses the fallout.   It’s been the lone topic on “Morning Joe” since 5:00 a.m.

And while all the hoopla around the book grows, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to fight for the Democratic Party’s nomination.  On Saturday, the DNC Rules Committee meets to determine the outcome for the Florida and Michigan delegations.  Taegan Goddard at Political Insider suggests that the committee will seat 50% of the delegates from both states and notes, “Although she will probably have succeeded in changing the “magic number” for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton will still likely be disappointed by the committee’s decision. The math doesn’t work for her now and won’t work for her after Saturday either.”

Puerto Rico votes on Sunday.  According to an El Vocero/Univision poll, Clinton leads Obama 51% - 38%.  CQ Politics answers five questions about the primary.

Okay, it’s not politics, but the Celtics took a 3-2 lead over the Pistons last night.  We’re one game closer to an old school Celtics - Lakers final.

As readers of this blog know, I watch MSNBC quite frequently. “Morning Joe,” is the best morning show on television, and the early evening political coverage (”Road to the White House” with David Gregory and “Hardball” with Chris Matthews, especially) is much more comprehensive than anything I can find on CNN or FOX. I enjoy their panels, which often include a mixture of Democrats (Harold Ford, Jr., recently), Republicans (Pat Buchanan, mostly) and journalists.

That said, it’s no secret that MSNBC, and more particularly, Keith Olbermann and Matthews (to a lesser extent, in my view), have been ardent Obama supporters. But as we saw with the media’s swift and visceral reaction to Hillary Clinton’s comments regarding Robert F. Kennedy, these guys aren’t alone in suggesting that the race is over (others, as I linked to below, have called for Clinton to quit next week, if not now).

Isaac Chotiner, writing in the New Republic, suggests that MSNBC’s coverage may end up hurting Obama. He writes,

“In fact, MSNBC’s bias has actually hurt the Illinois senator. After all, it was the Obama cheerleading from MSNBC (among others) that helped lead to Clinton’s New Hampshire comeback. And even if you think (as I do) that the Clintons have made too big of a deal out of the “sexist” and “unfair” portrayal their candidate has received in the press, if you watch enough MSNBC, you realize that their claim isn’t without truth. How could you believe otherwise when Olbermann, with his trademark hauteur, told Hillary that “voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth [of the campaign],” or when Matthews took such self-evident glee in trouncing Clinton in between the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary? Similarly now, by mocking Clinton’s decision to stay in the race, Olbermann has only bolstered her argument that “the boys” are trying to push her out. And finally, on a number of primary nights, but most notably in Pennsylvania and Ohio/Texas, MSNBC has become so excited by early exit polls that it has raised expectations that Obama ultimately could not live up to.”

I still don’t know how much credit to give to media outlets when it comes to elections. Last week, I listened to a panel of local journalists who talked about this. Arkansas Democrat Gazette op-ed writer Kane Webb particpated in the panel (which also included Arkansas Business publisher Jeff Hankins and Arkansas Week host Steve Barnes), and he wrote the following piece about it in Sunday’s paper (sorry, but it’s only available to subscribers) . His response to whether the media influences politics: “Yes, maybe, I have no idea.”

I do not make it to New York often - at least not any more. When I was in college, in Vermont, I frequented the city when I could, crashing on couches and floors of friends whose parents lived there. Back then, I saw the city through different eyes.

In the winter of 2005, I had the good fortune to be in the City upon the opening of “The Gates,” a extensive exhibit created by Christo and Jean-Claude, two environmental installation artists whose work has been seen at the Reichstag in Berlin, the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris and in Sonoma County, California. The exhibit, while it took months to construct, was only open for sixteen days.

So on a snowy day, I traipsed through Central Park, under twenty-three miles of orange gates with saffron-colored nylon hanging from them. It was beautiful. And that was the last time I was in New York before returning, almost two years to the day, this past February, for business.

On this Friday past, I boarded a plane for the City again to surprise two of my good friends from college who were gathering to celebrate their respective 30^th birthdays (in addition to being very close, their birthdays fall quite near to one another). One of my friends, Anthony, I’d seen in my last trip to New York, briefly. He’d returned after two years at Harvard Business School to work for a large marketing company. We shared a few drinks in the Café at the Carlton Hotel.

The other, Robb, I hadn’t seen since he and his lovely wife Trianna were married in San Antonio several years ago. It was a sprawling, delightful wedding in an old, restored Catholic church. The men dressed in tuxedos, and weathered the Texas heat by sipping cold cocktails. We ate dinner and danced until at well after two o’clock in the morning, I realized I had to be on plane in five hours. I said my good-byes, hoping they would be brief.

But they weren’t. Too much time went by. Robb moved to California to study writing; Anthony to Cambridge. And the people who were at the wedding – people I spent substantial time with during my college days – scattered out across the country, returning to their jobs and their lives in many of America’s magnificent cities.

When an e-mail came across my inbox inviting me to the party, I responded quickly. Airplane tickets, despite the soaring gas prices, were inexpensive. Thanks to the value hungry Web sites like hotels.com, nice rooms in even nicer hotels could be purchased for a bargain. After a quick layover in Cincinnati, my traveling friend and I touched down at LaGuardia, a little more than four hours after leaving Little Rock.

The party to which we were invited was being held on a boat located at the intersection of Twenty-Third Street and the East River. The concept was for us to sail round the tip of Manhattan to the Statue of Liberty and back again while enjoying cocktails, dinner and music. There was even a dance floor.

It was a gorgeous day in New York. The sun blazed through the thin and scattered clouds. We’d been walking, all day it seemed, through Central Park, Frederick Law Olmstead’s colossal creation. We watched families with kids and strollers and ice cream meander near the Children’s Zoo; dad’s were playing catch with their sons anywhere they could find the space; sunbathers took the opportunity (perhaps one of the first of the season) to bathe in the sun’s light; and older men and women played bocce and croquet on the park’s finely groomed courts.

The party was meant to be a surprise, although at an outing of paintball in New Jersey earlier in the day several attendees showed up to watch people shoot tiny balls of paint at each other with high-powered guns. We skipped it, not because it isn’t fun, but because I’m still on relatively strict orders to avoid high impact activity on my back. I surmised that paintball would be off-limits had I consulted my doctor.

And so as not to spoil what remaining surprise was left, we arrived early and boarded the boat. Immediately, I saw friendly faces. These were many of the same people I’d seen years ago in San Antonio and had kept up with through e-mail and Facebook. And despite my affection for both forms of communication, nothing compares to seeing faces and hearing voices. I was very glad to see them.

Several minutes later, after we said hello and hugged, Robb and Anthony arrived and the party began. Standing on the upper deck of the boat, we saw all of lower Manhattan, an area of town that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is credited with reviving. We drank summer cocktails and told stories and watched the sun die behind the imposing skyline.

Like all good times, the party ended too soon. After a trip to a local pub, where the fellowship continued well into the early morning hours, my traveling friend and I said our good-byes again and returned to our hotel to prepare for a flight home the next morning.

The holiday weekend, and the encounters with our friends from distant places, was too brief. But we’ll be back.

Lance Turner points me to this interesting story in Editor & Publisher about the increase in the use of technology at newspapers allowing reporters to spend less time in newsrooms and more time in the field.  Turner offers his own perspective too.

As I mentioned below, I buzzed up to New York this weekend.  I took former New York Times reporter and book author Gay Talese’s memoir “A Writer’s Life” with me.  I was intrigued by this passage, which I believe to be relevant to the article above and Mr. Turner’s comments:

“But changes occurred slowly at the [New York] Times, he [Turner Catledge] once told me, adding that the paper often reminded him of an elephant.  It was huge, reliable, and stubborn.  It was slow to learn new tricks and was clumsy.  If it was expected to dance, it had better dance well; otherwise, it could look mighty foolish in public.  He therefore knew that a considerable amount of practice, patience, and time would be necessary to make an impression on the tradition-bound mind-set existing within the paper’s nerve center, which was its sprawling block-long newsroom occupying the third floor of the fourteen-story Times building on West Forty-third Street.”

For those of you in the Little Rock area not heading to Riverfest tonight (or, for all you political junkies), might I remind you of the HBO film “Recount” that airs tonight at 8:00 p.m.  The film, directed by Jay Roach and produced by Sydney Pollack, is about the days following the infamous 2000 presidential election.  It stars Kevin Spacey, John Hurt, Dennis Leary, Tom Wilkinson, Ed Begley, Jr., Bob Balaban and Laura Dern.

It’s “an electrifying slapstick tragedy about a mad moment in American politics, a moment that must never happen again but easily could,” writes Tom Shales of the Washington Post.  Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times agrees and describes it as “an astute and deliciously engrossing film.”

As the photo below suggests, I was in New York this weekend celebrating the birthday of two close friends from college.  It seems that in my time away Sen. Hillary Clinton awoke the vacationing press with her statement about the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in the context of long political campaigns.  The statement brought swift and viceral reactions from many members of the media, especially the New York media.

Michael Goodwin of the New York Daily News and Maureen Dowd of the New York Times took her to town today.   Dowd was on Meet the Press this morning, and she said, “I think it gave delegates and a lot of Democrats the creeps, because basically the only reason she is still is in the race is that something bad will happen.  Of course she doesn’t wish him bodily harm, but she does want–she does wish him ill in the sense that they want a big horrible story that would debilitate him to break.”  Jake Tapper of ABC News writes of the “fallacy of Clinton’s 1968 analogy.”  The Times editorial board issued a harsh response, noting “We have no idea what, exactly, Hillary Clinton was thinking . . .”  The New York Post quotes a Kennedy insider who says, “I think people really felt that a line was crossed and that her campaign - and even her legitimacy as a politician - ended today.”  Lisa Lerer of Politico summarizes the topic on the other talk shows.   Slate.com’s “Hillary Deathwatch” now estimates her chances of winning the nomination at 0.7%.

Enjoy it.  I’m off the blog until Sunday night.