Vice President Joe Biden is in the Ukraine today, where he’s been meeting top leaders there including Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. Officially, this is Biden’s 6th overseas trip since being sworn in as President Obama’s No. 2. But for Biden, these trips are a little like a reunion tour. Most of the leaders the Veep’s met with he already knew back from his travels as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee. That means there’s an established rapport there, no awkward tip-toeing around—not that Biden would if he could. Reporters covering Biden on these trips usually get to hear some interesting moments between the two leaders—not the standard chit chat on how much they enjoyed meeting one another and how they'll work closely together, yadda yadda. Take for instance Biden’s sit-down with Yushchenko today, which just so happened to occur in a bar. (The two were allegedly drinking Cokes, according to the Veep’s office. Uh huh.) According to the pool report, the press was taken in to witness the two leaders in the middle of their conversation. One reporter overheard Yushchenko talking about Ukrainian churches. A few moments later, Biden was overheard complementing Yushchenko on his country’s, um, population."I cannot believe that a Frenchman visiting Kiev went back home and told his colleagues he discovered something and didn't say he discovered the most beautiful women in the world. That's my observation,” Biden declared. "It's certain you have so many beautiful women." Yep, that sounds like our Joe. For the record, your Gaggler, who traveled with Biden on trips to Belgium, the Balkans and Lebanon earlier this year, can confirm this is really how Biden talks with every foreign leader. Come to think of it, your Gaggler is pretty she heard Biden say roughly the same thing about the women in Sarajevo. (And we already know he loves those girls in Texas.) Bottom line: the diplomacy seems to work. The other leaders love Biden. No word on Yushchenko's reaction today, but we're guessing he didn't disagree with the Veep's assessment.

In the last two weeks, political commentators have expressed doubts over President Obama's time frame for healthcare reform. Meanwhile, even some Democrat lawmakers appear to be getting cold feet. In response, Obama is relentlessly pitching his plan. He has spoken about healthcare on eight out of the last nine days, and he's scheduled to hold a town hall meeting on the topic this Thursday. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is one of the few politicians in the country with first hand experience of steering major health care reform through the legislative process. The reforms he enacted in Massachusetts have been critizied for being costly, but they've also managed to extend coverage to a significant number of uninsured people. By 2007, the proportion of uninsured people in Massachusetts was the lowest in the country.

I spoke to Romney about his experience with healthcare reform this morning.  His cautionary words for Obama? Slow down. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

What do you think needs to happen over the next couple of weeks if President Obama's deadline for healthcare reform is to be met?

I think the President ought to hit the reset button. I think it is critical that he have the participation, involvement, and support of people on both sides of the aisle, as well as people in various sectors of the health economy. If we are going to have a dramatic shift in the nature of so large a part of our economy  then it needs to be something that has been thoroughly vetted and has received great support. Out of a desire to move very quickly, while his support is highest, he has skipped the critical steps of educating, involving, and evolving his own plans to meet the perspectives of the great majority of our citizens.

It sounds like you are encouraging the President to slow down. Aren't there risks in delaying?

He's in a very difficult position. We faced a very similar question [in Massachusetts] as we began our process. We spent over two years putting together a health care plan and then building support for it on both sides of the aisle - working with hospitals, providers, doctors, business groups, labor groups, advocates for the poor. We involved all of these parties, and it took a long time, but what we ended up with was a bill that passed the legislature - if you combine the House and the Senate - 198 to 2.  (continued after the jump)

Keeping up the media blitz, President Obama was back in front of the cameras this afternoon pushing health care reform. Speaking to reporters in the Rose Garden, Obama didn’t really say anything new. He made no new arguments or talked up no new details in the bills Congress is debating. But as the House and Senate struggle to find compromise on several significant issues—including how to pay for it all—Obama took a step back and tried to accentuate the areas of common ground the two sides do have. “I know there is a tendency in Washington to accentuate the differences instead of underscoring common ground,” Obama said. “But make no mistake: We are closer than ever before to the reform that the American people need, and we're going to get the job done.”

Among the examples Obama cited: The bill pushed by House Democrats as well as the legislation adopted last week by the Senate HELP committee include provisions that would prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to those with pre-existing medical conditions. Both bills include a so-called public plan that would, in Obama’s words, “keep insurance companies honest” and increase competition to lower costs. He claimed the bills would lower government waste. And twice, Obama insisted that Americans would be able to stick with their current health coverage if they want to.  “If you like you’re plan, you’ll be able to keep it,” Obama said, in spite of the fact both administration officials and Congress have previously suggested they might not be able to keep insurance companies from dramatically changing current coverage should reform pass. In fact all of these proposals are pretty iffy, as Obama himself acknowledged yesterday in a conference call with bloggers. The moment to watch, in the prez’s opinion, is when House and Senate negotiators sit down to begin negotiating a joint bill. “Conference is where these differences will get ironed out,” Obama said, according to the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein.

Obama's much vaunted grassroots organizing will be tested over the next two weeks as it swings into action to support the President's health care agenda. Since the campaign, Obama's field operation has morphed into a group called "Organizing for America", which tries to capitalize on the formidable activism of Obama volunteers in last year's election. Today, the group's director Mitch Stewart sent a mass email to supporters, attempting to mobilize them around Senator Jim DeMint's remark that health care could be Obama's "Waterloo". In an email entitled "It will break him" (a direct quote from DeMint), Stewart urges his members to "stand with President Obama on health care reform" and sign a declaration of support. No doubt analysts will be examining the success of OFA's declaration to divine how long his coattails are, and determine if the polls showing that trust in the President has declined are accurate. It will also be an interesting proxy for whether the popularity of Obama-the-idea holds in the face of Obama-the-policy-maker.

(Interestingly, Stewart does not call the declaration a petition. He opts for a more forceful term - "declaration". Stewart also says the signatures he collects will be published in newspapers across the country, which seems an odd and perhaps flawed notion. It may prove a disincentive for some - not everyone wants their political persuasions to receive national attention.)

The Senate today voted to reject a request for $1.75 billion to fund the F-22 fighter-jet program. This is a bright spot for the president amid a swirl of criticism over his health-care plans, rising jobless numbers, and falling poll numbers. And it's evidence that he retains considerable sway over congressional Democrats. Obama threatened to veto the defense-appropriations bill if it contained funding for more than four F-22s, but it was unclear until today whether Democrats would fall in line. Not all of them did─this afternoon's vote crossed party lines. Republicans including John McCain and Judd Gregg voted to veto funding, while Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman had hoped the program would continue. Regardless, this is a significant political victory for both the White House and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, saving them both from potential embarrassment. Gates has been an ardent proponent of scrapping the troubled F-22 program. In a speech in Chicago last Thursday, he argued for the need to fundamentally reshape how the Pentagon does business, namely how it develops and purchases weapons systems. Today's vote represents a concrete step toward achieving that end.

The F-22 Raptor was developed in the 1980s as a replacement for the F-15. But it was conceived during the Cold War, when the largest threat to American security was a techologically advanced Soviet Union, and it has been riddled with problems. The F-22 has crashed multiple times during test flights, most recently in March, when a crash resulted in the death of test pilot David Cooley. And it's expensive to operate─about $44,000 per hour of flight. The plane has never flown in Afghanistan or Iraq. Gates would like to see the funds spent on other Defense Department priorities.

Obama: Love me, love my jeans. Photo by Pete Souza/White House

Yesterday afternoon, Barack Obama sat down with The Today Show’s Meredith Vieira, who promptly asked about the most pressing issue facing this young president: What was up with those jeans he wore to the All-Star Game last week? They looked like Levi 501s. Entertainment Weekly hilariously dubbed them “Dad jeans.” It was a wardrobe choice that didn’t exactly seem fitting for a guy generally considered pretty stylish. Why, pray tell, did Michelle let him out the door looking like that? Obama, for his part, didn’t even try to defend the jeans. “Here's my attitude: Michelle, she looks fabulous; I'm a little frumpy,” Obama told Vieira. “You know, basically, up until a few years ago, I only had four suits. She used to tease me because they'd get really shiny. I hate to shop. Those jeans are comfortable. And for those of you who, you know, want your president to, you know, look great in his tight jeans, I'm sorry, I'm not the guy.” So no low riders, Viera asked. “Sorry, yes,” Obama declared. “It just doesn’t fit me. I’m not 20.”