Can this White House meeting between President Bush and President-Elect Obama happen already? MSNBC, for one, is in real danger of running out of ways (though seemingly never people) to speculate about What Might Happen at the meeting, scheduled for 2pm today.

Doing its part to pass the time, AP takes us back to what previous presidents and president-elects did when they first met. Highlights:

Eisenhower also took time to show Kennedy how to use the panic button that would bring a helicopter to the back lawn…

…Johnson pulled Nixon into his bedroom, and told him, “I wanted you to know about this.” He showed Nixon a small safe hidden in the wall.

What might be the 2008 equivalents of these now-quaint-seeming gestures? Oh, the possibilities (for cable news to ponder, for the next hour-plus)…