Joe Wilson to Arlen Specter: 'You Lie'

The specter of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is haunting newly minted Democratic Senator Arlen Specter so much that he's turned to making things up evidently.

At the AFL-CIO Convention this week in Pittsburgh, the former Republican maverick, who is now being threatened with extinction in the Democratic party by labor leaders if he doesn't support EFCA, announced that he had the 60 votes necessary to pass a revised EFCA.

However, no one else in the Senate appears to know of the deal, which Specter said would involve five-day elections instead of card check and "baseball" arbitration instead of open-ended arbitration (baseball arb empowers an arbitrator solely to choose either the "last best" contract offer from labor or the one from management).

Senate leader Harry Reid says he knows of no deal and furthermore thinks card check must be part of the final bill.

Best bet is that Specter is scared to death of Pennsylvania union activists siding with his Democratic challenger in the upcoming primary and of Big Labor sending millions to his opponent lest Specter deliver on EFCA.