So maybe Elena Kagan will take the day off.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., explained that on Thursday, Kagan should no longer have to appear, and instead, witnesses for and against her nomination to the Supreme Court will take the stand.

"You, of course, can sit with your feet up and watch that part," Leahy told Kagan.

"I can't come back?" she asked.

"You know," Leahy said, "if you're that much of a glutton for punishment, you're not qualified to be on the Supreme Court."

Then again, he added, "You can throw kisses to the TV set for those who say nice things, and you can throw stuff at the TV set for those who say bad things."

"You know," Kagan figured, "I think I won't watch."

Nice try, Elena Kagan, but nah, I'm not Harvard material.

That's what Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., seemed to be saying as he questioned the Supreme Court nominee Wednesday.

"Now, let's talk about Harvard," Graham said at one point to the former Harvard Law School dean. "It's a great institution, some place I couldn't have got in, so that makes it, you know, special, because if you'd let me in, it wouldn't be special." Graham graduated from the University of South Carolina law school.

Kagan smiled. "I would have taken you," she said.

"Not with my SAT scores," Graham laughed and said. "I couldn't even play football at Harvard."

President-elect Barack Obama suggested close friend Valerie Jarrett as his replacement in the US Senate, according to testimony at the corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Illinois union leader Thomas Balanoff said he took a call from Obama the night before the presidential election in November 2008.

"Tom, I want to talk to you with regard to the Senate seat," Balanoff said that Obama told him, according to a Sun-Times account of the trial by reporter Natasha Korecki.

"Balanoff said Obama said he had two criteria: someone who was good for the citizens of Illinois and could be elected in 2010.

"Obama said he wasn't publicly coming out in support of anyone but he believed Valerie Jarrett would fit the bill.

"I would much prefer she (remain in the White House) but she does want to be Senator and she does meet those two criteria," Balanoff said Obama told him. "I said: 'thank you, I'm going to reach out to Gov. Blagojevich."

Bad news for President Obama in a new Marist Poll from Marist College.

First, a solid majority of 57 percent think his handling of the Gulf oil spill is the same or worse than President George W. Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina. That's exactly what Obama's White House message machine strived to avoid.

Second, the poll reports that 50% of registered voters say Obama is falling below expectations while 44 percent say he's meeting or surpassing them. That's the first time in his presidency the poll found the ranks of the disappointed outnumbering the ranks of those who think Obama's doing as well or better than they expected.

The danger zone? Independents.

"While there has been little change among Democrats and Republicans here, dissatisfaction has grown among independent voters," the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion says.

"Nearly six in ten — 58% — report the president has disappointed them, and 34% view the president as meeting their expectations or going above and beyond them.  8% are unsure.:

Says center director Lee M. Miringoff: "As President Obama enters a critical time in his presidency, the national electorate has greater doubt over whether he is living up to their expectations of him.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar had a novel way of getting Supreme Court nominee to describe the role of a judge: Try baseball. And make it clear which team you like.

Chief Justice John Roberts had used the metaphor during his confirmation hearings years ago, and now Klobuchar wanted Kagan to try.

"Do you think the balls and strikes analogy is a useful one?" Klobuchar, D-Minn., asked, "and does it have its limits."

Kagan, a New York Mets fan, eagerly responded.

"I think it's correct in several important respects, but it does have its limits," she said.

She compared judges to umpires. "Not to come onto the field rooting for one team or another," Kagan said. "You know, if the umpire comes on and says, you know, 'I want every call to go to the Phillies.' That's a bad umpire.

"And is that your team?" Kagan asked.

"Not exactly," Klobuchar said. "The Twins."

Kagan quickly recovered. "I was pointing to Sen. Kaufman, I'm sorry," she said. Kaufman is from Delaware.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, who died Monday, will lie in repose in the U.S. Senate chamber most of Thursday, the first time since 1959 a senator has been so honored. The public can pay its respects from 10:15 a.m. until 3:45 p.m.

Byrd, 92, was the longest-serving U.S. senator in history. He was elected to his West Virginia Senate seat nine times, starting in 1958. He will be the first senator to lie in repose in the chamber since William Langer, a North Dakota Republican. Forty-six senators have had the honor.

A waiting hearse will take his body from the Capitol at 4 p.m. Thursday, and the casket will be taken to the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston, where the public can pay its respects from 9p.m. Thursday until 9 a.m. Friday.

A memorial service will be held in Charleston Friday morning, and the funeral will be held Tuesday in at the Memorial Baptist Church in Arlington, Va.

Talk about full disclosure: Elena Kagan was probably eating Chinese food on Christmas Day.

During the Supreme Court nominee's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked Kagan was she was doing that day. A Nigerian man is accused of trying to use a bomb to destroy an airplane that day.

Kagan first gave a long legal discourse, but then Graham reminded her he only asked what she was doing.

"Like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant," said Kagan, who is Jewish, citing a popular destination for Jewish people on the holiday.

"No other restaurants are open," explained Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Graham understood. "I think that's what Christmas is about," he laughed.

President Obama was quick to accept Gen. Stan McChrystal's resignation after that Rolling Stone article, but believes his service in Afghanistan should allow him to retire with the full benefits of a four-star general even though he hasn't served at that position long enough to qualify automatically. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today the president and Defense Secretary Robert Gates had spoken about it and that the president's position is "we will do whatever is necessary" to allow McChrystal to retire as a four-star general.

My colleague at the Pentagon, Nancy Youssef, says technically the Secretary of the Army must make the actual exception, which hasn't happened yet. 

Senate Democrats left a bipartisan meeting at the White House on Tuesday saying they and President Barack Obama will still insist on imposing some sort of price on carbon pollution in an energy bill but are willing to significantly scale back their goals if that's what it takes to get a deal with Republicans.

"All of us have to compromise," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "We believe we have compromised significantly but we’re prepared to compromise further. And we are looking for some Republicans and perhaps even some members of our caucus who will meet us at that place of compromise.

"We are prepared to scale back the reach of our legislation in order to try to find that place of compromise because we believe and I think the president believes very strongly what is important is for America to get started," Kerry said. "If we begin this process then the marketplace in the United States will begin to take over."

Kerry said that compromise could include limiting the carbon pricing to power plants, or "some other possibilities" but he did not elaborate.

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut said that "some colleagues" whom he declined to name, indicated in the meeting with the president that "they’d be willing to discuss limited forms of doing that in this bill, and to me that’s a breakthrough that Sen. Kerry and I want to begin to take advantage of by sitting and talking with those colleagues across party lines as quickly as we can.”

Lieberman said the president also expressed a "strong feeling" that the energy bill should be the legislative vehicle for BP-oil-spill related legislation.

Republicans who spoke to reporters after the meeting did not show their cards if they were prepared to back a carbon pricing compromise. Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who heads the Senate Republican Conference, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both said the country would not support a "national energy tax" this year.