How do you say bro-down in French? (Photo: Getty)

Newly elected French President Francois Hollande had his first meeting with President Barack Obama today. In a press conference with reporters after their conversation, President Obama said he was eager to hear Monsieur Hollande's assessment of American cuisine after the upcoming NATO Summit in Chicago.

"I was reading the President's biography ... he actually spent some time in the United States in his youth, studying American fast food." President Obama said. "Although he decided to go into politics, we'll be interested in his opinions of cheeseburgers in Chicago."

Monsieur Hollande responded with a promise to never besmirch burgers.

"I would like to thank President Obama for the knowledge he has of my life before I took office," he said, according to an interpreter. "I will say nothing against cheeseburgers, of course."

Mr. Obama replied diplomatically.

"I just want to remember that cheeseburgers go very well with French fries," he said.

President Obama also mentioned another detail he gleaned from Monsieur Hollande's biography--before taking office he rode a motorscooter.

"I also warned him that now that he's President, he can no longer ride a scooter in Paris," Mr. Obama said. "I know because I've tried with the Secret Service and they don't let me do it."

President Hollande responded by saying he hoped he'd put his scooter days behind him.

"As to my own vehicle, the one I used to have until I took office, I hope that I will not have to use it," he said.

Of course, the pair of world leaders also discussed weightier issues than cheeseburgers and scooters--namely, the economic situation in Europe, the war in Afghanistan and the situation in the Middle East. They were in agreement about the precarious economic situation in Greece.

"We share the same views, the fact that Greece must stay in the eurozone and that all of us must do what we can to that effect.  There will be elections in Greece and we wanted to send a message to that effect to the Greek people," President Hollande said.

Monsieur Hollande also said he was sticking by his campaign promise to withdraw French troops from Afghanistan.

"I reminded President Obama that I made a promise to the French people to the effect that our combat troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of 2012, he said. "That being said, we will continue to support Afghanistan in a different way, our support will take a different format, and all of that will be done in good understanding with our allies within ISAF.  And so we will continue and comply with our commitment to that country, and supply and support, as I said, in a different way."

Mr. Obama said they would discuss the situation further in Chicago. He also said they identified Iran, Syria and the transitions in Egypt and Tunisia as "topics of critical importance."

"We'll be devoting extensive time to those issues throughout the G8 meeting," President Obama said. "France has shown great leadership on these issues, and as I indicated to President Hollande, when the United States and France, along with our other key allies, make up our minds to stand firm on the side of democracy and freedom and development, that enormous progress can be made."

President Hollande said he hoped negotiations could begin in Iran and promised to follow through on France's promise to help the Middle Eastern countries that took part in the Arab Spring transition to democracy.

"Regarding Iran, we, again, noted that we share views and that we could start negotiations, but that being said, with the required firmness that Iran doesn't get the nuclear military capability," Monsieur Hollande said. "Regarding Syria and Arab Spring countries, we talked about the Deauville partnership, and here again I said that we would comply with our commitments."

-Fin-

Congresswoman Michele Bachamnn (Getty)

WASHINGTON Michele Bachmann made a speech at the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. where she accused President Barack Obama of making a series of dangerous foreign policy "miscalculations" including failing to support Israel and not standing by ousted Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak in his quest to keep the Muslim Brotherhood at bay.

"Obama failed to stand by Mubarak and that helped fuel the revolution in Egypt and it led to a regime that was based on sharia law with 72 percent of the seats in the Lower House in Egypt now occupied by the Brotherhood and an even more radical Salafist party," Ms. Bachmann said.

Ms. Bachmann said she wanted to prevent President Obama from highlighting "foreign policy successes" in his re-election effort.

"This fall, President Obama will be pointing to his foreign policy successes in order to make the case for his successful re-election. He'll be pointing to Bin Laden, he'll be pointing to the overthrow of Qaddafi, he'll be pointing to the Arab Spring as his foreign policy success story," Ms. Bachmann said. "These are tactical successes that don't begin to compare with the mess that Barack Obama has made of the Middle East and the strategic foreign policy blunders."

Ms. Bachmann said the president's main mistake was choosing "Islamic outreach over Israel" and she cited his speech in Cairo, his handling of Israel and the withdrawal of troops from Iraq as examples of the president's missteps.

"When Barack Obama chose Islamic outreach over Israel, he changed the course of history," Ms. Bachmann said. "No president since the modern state of Israel has failed to stand by our ally Israel, only President Obama."

Ms. Bachmann had particularly harsh words for President Obama's decision to invite members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to his landmark 2o09 Cairo speech, a decision she called "absolutely shocking."

"The president spurned the President of Egypt when he took his first foreign trip to Cairo," Ms. Bachmann said. "In an absolutely shocking move, he invited the Muslim Brotherhood to hear his speech when Mubarak's policy was to keep the Brotherhood at arm's length. The Muslim Brotherhood's mission is the spread of global jihad and their leader has called for the demise, not only of the United States, but also of Israel."

Ms. Bachmann blamed this choice for helping to "fuel" the Arab Spring, which she said led to the "rise of political Islam" throughout the Arab world.

"The spread of radical Islam has not been confined to Egypt. The rise of political Islam has brought sharia law now to Tunisia and Al Qaeda to Libya, as I warned during the presidential race earlier this year," Ms. Bachmann said.

According to Ms. Bachmann these "miscalculations" have put the world "on the verge of a nuclear Iran."

"And Iran is committed to both the destruction of Israel and of the United States," Ms. Bachmann said. "And they are the epicenter of global jihad."

Ms. Bachmann equated the withdrawal of troops from Iraq with handing that country "to the Iranians" and she predicted the president will do the same thing in Afghanistan.

"We credit our brave troops for winning the war in Iraq at a very tremendous cost, but the president recently chose intentionally to lose the peace," Ms. Bachmann said. "They intend to do the same thing in Afghanistan and they will likely lose the peace in Afghanistan. It's unthinkable after a decade of effort to defeat global jhad, Obama, for the sake of his political re-election, has chosen to hand Iraq to the Iranians."

Ms. Bachmann said President Obama has done several things wrong with respect to Israel starting with his call for the country to retreat to its pre-Six Day War borders.

"Before Obama was elected, Israel could count on America's unwavering support, but since Obama's election, Israel has rarely enjoyed President Obama's support, and in May he even said that Israel should retreat to her indefensible 1967 borders," Ms. Bachmann said. "In a bad case of misplaced priorities, the president thinks that Israel building apartment buildings on her own land is worse than Iran getting a nuclear bomb."

Ms. Bachmann also criticized the president for the State Department's policy of not recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

"Obama's State Department now designates Jerusalem as an international city and, in a bizarre move, our State Department won't even acknowledge that Jerusalem belongs to Israel. Jerusalem does belong to Israel," she said.

She also slammed the president for saying America is "not a Christian nation, or a Jewish nation, or a Muslim nation."

"Before obama was elected, no one had ever heard of a United States president saying to the world that the United States is not a judeo-christian nation," Ms. Bachmann said. "I am here to say we are."

Though she expects President Obama to tout his "foreign policy success story" on the campaign trail, Ms. Bachmann concluded by saying his foreign policies are precisely the reason he shouldn't be re-elected.

"The president's foreign policy does change the history of the world, which is why Barack Obama cannot have a second term as president."