I asked Specter if he wanted to see the Obama administration embrace an exit strategy for the eight-year war. “I think there ought to be an exit strategy,” Specter said, which ought to be “geared toward our expectations as to what we’re looking to accomplish.” But he demurred on seeking a timeline for winding down the war. “I would want to see the administration’s proposals, and see what people on the ground over there think,” Specter said. “It’s hard to answer that with any specificity.” He added that he endorsed the Obama administration’s style of decisionmaking, defending the “very thoughtful” president against charges of “dithering” lodged by former Vice President Cheney.

Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy’s The Cable asked how a troop increase would go over in Congress. “If they talk about 40,000 troops, which the generals want, I think it’ll be pretty cold,” Specter said. He added that there would be a greater appetite in the Senate for a proposal issued by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to instead emphasize the training of Afghan soldiers and police.

Specter claimed that his opponent in the Pennsylvania Democratic senatorial primary, Rep. Joe Sestak, was calling for a “major measured increase” in troops — Sestak himself, however, has said he endorsed a “measured increase” in a recent Fox News interview — but when I asked if politics was playing any role in his position, he replied, “None. None.” When I asked why it seemed he was only speaking out lately despite years of deterioration in Afghanistan, Specter replied that he had expressed concern about the Afghanistan war “several months ago,” which I think is a reference to this September Senate floor statement that indeed raised questions about “the prospects for military success in Afghanistan against al-Qaida and the Taliban.” He continued to say that “as Afghanistan has become a hot topic over the course of the last several months” and has become “relevant for congressional response, I have made it.”

Update: After being contacted by Sen. Specter’s staff, I went back to my recording and indeed hear Specter describe Sestak’s position as a “measured” and not “major” increase, despite initially hearing it as “major.” My apologies to the senator.

The OLC is the office that housed such Bush-era luminaries as John Yoo and Jay Bybee, and issued the infamous “torture memos” that defined torture so narrowly that even waterboarding — which had always been considered a form of torture before, even by the United States — now passed legal muster. Johnsen was one of many critics of that office’s legal opinions during the Bush presidency, earning her the lingering ire of many Republicans.

Among them was Specter, who, during her confirmation hearing in February, took the lead in painting her as a radical left-wing ideologue. In April, even after switching parties, he reaffirmed that he was still opposed to her nomination. As a result of the staunch opposition of Specter, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), and most Republicans, the Office of Legal Counsel has gone without a confirmed leader to advise the president on critical legal issues, such as the use of warrantless wiretapping and the treatment and trials of suspected terrorists and “war on terror” detainees.

But now, it looks like Specter may be changing his mind. Specter’s press secretary, Kate Kelly, emailed me Thursday with this:

Senator Specter has several concerns about Ms. Johnsen’s nomination, including her views on executive power and abortion. Senator Specter is solidly pro-choice, but he disagrees with her position equating limitations with involuntary servitude. Senator Specter had a second meeting with her to get clarification on her positions and he is still considering her nomination.

As I pointed out during Johnsen’s confirmation hearing, Specter grilled her on a footnote buried in a friend-of-the-court brief she’d co-authored with 10 other lawyers representing 77 different public interest organizations, 20 years ago in an abortion rights case when she was a lawyer for the National Abortion Rights Action League. The footnote said that laws curtailing the right to an abortion “are disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude, prohibited by the 13th Amendment, in that forced pregnancy requires [a woman] to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest.”

“When I read in your writings that abortion bans are a violation of the 13th Amendment ban on slavery,” Specter chastised Johnsen at her confirmation hearing, “that seems to me candidly beyond the pale.”

Johnsen, flustered, responded that, as far as she could remember, she hadn’t actually equated outlawing abortion with slavery, but was just making an analogy. Anyway, the point, while creative, was pretty tangential to the core of the brief’s argument. It was, after all, relegated to footnote 23. But that clearly did not satisfy Specter, who remained firmly opposed to her nomination.

Until Thursday.

The change is consistent with Specter’s overall transformation, captured well by Nate Silver’s Specterometer at FiveThirtyEight.com. According to Silver’s analysis, after switching parties on April 28th, Specter started out voting with the Democrats on “contentious votes” about two-thirds of the time. But since Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) announced on May 27 that he plans to challenge Specter in the 2010 Democratic primary, Specter has become a far more loyal party member, voting with the party on “contentious votes” 97 percent of the time.

That was Silver’s count in July, and I don’t have the count to date, but it does give some indication as to why Specter decided to meet with Johnsen a second time, and is now “reconsidering” which way he’ll vote on her nomination.

In a statement, the lawmakers cite the reasoning behind the proposal.

Under current law, possession of five grams of crack cocaine (roughly the weight of two sugar cubes) triggers a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence, while trafficking 500 grams (approximately one pound) of powder cocaine triggers the same sentence. The so-called 100:1 sentencing disparity has been in place since 1986. The Fair Sentencing Act would eliminate the disparity, treating crack and powder cocaine equally.

Sen. Richard Durbin (Ill.), the upper chamber’s second-ranking Democrat, said passage of the bill is long overdue.

The sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine has contributed to the imprisonment of African Americans at six times the rate of whites and to the United States’ position as the world’s leader in incarcerations. Congress has talked about addressing this injustice for long enough; it’s time for us to act.

Other sponsors of the bill include Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy (Vt.), Arlen Specter (Pa.), Chris Dodd (Conn.), John Kerry (Mass.), Al Franken (Minn.), Ted Kaufman (Del.), Russ Feingold (Wis.), Ben Cardin (Md.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.).

In July, the House Judiciary Committee advanced a similar bill, sponsored by Rep. Robert Scott (D-Va.).

Responding to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) assurances that the bill, as proposed, is necessary and important based on classified information she’s received that can’t be shared with the American public, Specter demurred.

“We have moved a distance from where we were before, in requiring a foreign terror connection,” he said, noting that several provisions of the bill no longer require that. “In 2005, the bill was handled unanimously. The core of the bill required a connection with a foreign power. That’s really what we’re looking for here in the Patriot Act. When that requirement is taken away it seems to me it guts the structure of the Patriot Act. You have the provision of lone wolf, with no connection to a foreign power, which is the core of the patriots act. It hasn’t been used at all. It seems to me something this committee ought not rush to retain.”

As for “roving wiretaps,” Specter added that he opposed those back in 2001 because they failed to require the FBI to specify who they’re wiretapping. “The whole point of probable cause for search and seizure is probable cause with specificity,” said Specter. “Our committee ought to be more assertive as a guardian of separation of powers. This has a philosophical connection to what we’re doing on state secrets,” he said, referring to the state secrets privilege that the Justice Department has repeatedly asserted to dismiss lawsuits charging government wrongdoing. “Now all you have to do is have the executive branch assert state secrets and that closes the matter. … It’s still the executive branch, without judicial review to take a look.”

He continued, “I would hope this committee would be more assertive of the separation of powers under the Constitution.”

President Obama will deliver his major health care speech to Congress at 8 p.m. tonight — and the GOP has already begun its spin. The Republican leadership in Congress is blasting the reform effort, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) criticizing the size of the 1,000-page House bill and Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) predicting that Obama would “try to put lipstick on this pig and call it something else.” Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) laid out his expectations for the speech, portraying it as a test of the president’s ability to persuade Americans they stand to gain from greater government involvement in health care. Following the speech, Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), a little-known Congressman and a former heart surgeon, will deliver the Republican rebuttal.

Democrats continue to fight over the public option ahead of the speech. Progressive Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) says he won’t vote for a bill that doesn’t include a public option, but Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the key Finance Committee, insists that a bill containing a public option won’t pass the Senate. Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), continuing his swing to the left in the face of a primary challenge, tweets, “This United States senator is going to tell him (the president) emphatically that we need the public option.”

And Obama himself? Marc Ambinder speculates that his target audience tonight is the 100 or so members of Congress who have threatened to oppose a bill that doesn’t contain a public option. The White House talking points don’t shed much light on the speech, but they do single out Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for her op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal:

On Gov. Palin’s Attacks

Every non-partisan organization that has looked at her claims say they are false. And the ideas in her op-ed are both scary and risky. Eliminating Medicare and giving our seniors vouchers instead is a bad idea that we shouldn’t adopt.

U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey called President Obama’s speech today to school children in Arlington, Virginia “an inspiring and moving speech for students across America.”

“Education is the cornerstone of our country’s future,” Mr. Toomey said, “and it is important that we relay that message to our young students.  The President’s emphasis on responsibility and the personal stories about his own education are exactly the kind of inspiring messages our children need to hear from our country’s leaders.”

While some polls have shown Toomey becoming more competitive in his 2010 U.S. Senate campaign in Pennsylvania, the fact remains that he’s a conservative Republican running in a blue state against a Democrat (either Rep. Joe Sestak or Sen. Arlen Specter) who will surely have the backing of powerful local labor unions. Toomey has veered hard to the middle since forcing Specter into the Democratic Party, first by endorsing Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination, now with this.

The news really hit during a panel on “Forced Unionization,” with panelists quick to point out that “a vote for cloture is a vote for EFCA.” Attendees seemed to know that. When conservative new media guru David All asked his audience (at “Social Networking 101: Twitter and Facebook”) if they heard about the “breaking news about Arlen Specter on Twitter,” several people shouted “he’s going to vote yes on cloture!” Specter’s decision turned into an example of how to hashtag tweets and spread news and messaging.

Groups like the Workforce Fairness Institute, which had been a little somnolent lately as chances of a 2009 EFCA vote faded, are blasting out links to Specter’s previous stances on the issue. In March, TWI broke the news that Specter would filibuster card check.

Specter got it all wrong that I ever used words “death boards”. Even liberal press never accused me of that. So change ur last Tweet Arlen

Here’s Sen. Arlen Specter’s (D-Pa.) offending tweet.

Called Senator Grassley to tell him to stop speading myths about health care reform and imaginary “death panels.”

Amato joined Specter backstage after his Q&A, and Specter did call Grassley — but he got his voicemail.

“He left a voicemail and said, ‘Listen, here’s my cell phone number, and we need to talk about what you said in the press,’” Amato told me.

Now the question is whether Grassley will return the call.

Asked about his thoughts on the climate legislation that emerged from the House, he said, “I was disappointed in this bill because it was eviscerated during the process too much.”

He continued: “But is this bill good and necessary? Without question. … I’m for this bill. I just wish it were stronger.”

And on health care reform? “I’m 150 percent behind it. … I’m 150 percent behind the public option.”

He also attacked Specter for the “posterboard” hanging in his office that touts Specter and Bob Dole’s opposition to Bill Clinton’s health care reform efforts.

But for all of his liberal positions, Sestak has the progressive crowd groaning with his frequent resort to cliches and truisms, spoken with exaggerated sincerity. As the blogger sitting next to me pointed out, he’ll need to refine his approach if he wants to win a primary against the slippery Specter.