Sarah Palin: Putin Is Out 'Wrestling Bears' While Obama Is Wearing 'Mom Jeans'

Former Gov. Sarah Palin is throwing her hat in with Russia President Vladimir Putin over U.S. President Barack Obama, at least when it comes to a bear wrestling contest.

Palin appeared on Sean Hannity’s nightly Fox News show, partly to criticize President Obama’s image and handling of the Ukraine crisis and partly to gloat about her improbably correct 2008 prediction that Russian President (then Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin would invade Ukraine if Obama were elected. Speaking to Hannity, Palin claimed that Russia is no longer afraid of reprisal by the United States because of Obama’s alleged timidity.

According to Palin, Putin is a rough-and-tumble man’s man, while Obama is seen as an effete leader in “mom jeans.”

“Look, the perception of Obama, of him and his potency across the world is one of such weakness," Palin said. "People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates.”

“Anyone who carries the commonsense gene would know that Putin doesn’t change his stripes,” she continued. “He wants to exert huge power and dominance, so he has to get to those border areas and he has to capture them.”

Palin went on to brag about her correct assumption that Russia could take action against Ukraine if Obama were elected. On the heels of Russia’s invasion of Georgia, Palin claimed at an October 2008 rally that Obama’s election would embolden Russia to continue interfering in other Eastern European nations like Ukraine. At the time, Foreign Policy claimed Palin’s prediction was “extremely far-fetched.” Now that Russia has moved into Crimea, Palin has taken to gloating both on Fox News and online.

“I’m usually not one to Told-Ya-So, but I did, despite my accurate prediction being derided as ‘an extremely far-fetched scenario’ by the ‘high-brow’ Foreign Policy magazine,” Palin wrote in a Facebook post last week.

On “Hannity,” Palin also stated that the rest of the world was “looking for that shining city on a hill” that they could emulate, but that Obama’s strategy of “leading from behind, whatever that means” has left the world looking for leadership elsewhere. She specifically cited Obama’s refusal to move forward on the Keystone XL pipeline

Watch Palin’s remarks below.