Sarah Palin: McCain Got It Right on Russia

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin gave high -- and rare -- praise to Sen. John McCain on Monday, applauding his assessment that President Obama underestimates both Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions -- and al Qaeda's threat.

Writing on her Facebook after McCain's interview with Fox News Sunday, his former 2008 vice presidential running mate agreed that Putin was "an old KGB colonel" who was wildly underestimated by President Obama.

"As Senator McCain noted today: 'The president comparing [Putin] to a kid in the back of a classroom, I think, is very indicative of the president’s lack of appreciation of who Vladimir Putin is. He’s an old KGB colonel that has no illusions about our relationship, does not care about a relationship with the United States, continues to oppress his people, continues to act in an autocratic fashion'.”

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She added that McCain "is also right in his assessment of Obama’s "absurd claim that al-Qaida is on the run despite the evidence to the contrary with the closure of diplomatic posts in Yemen due to terror threats from APAQ."

"As McCain said, 'You can’t say you’ve decimated the core of al Qaeda and at same time have to close these posts'," Palin wrote.

Though critics scoffed at her lack of understanding of international affairs when she was McCain's ticket mate, Palin now insists McCain was an expert on "foreign threats" and that Obama should heed his advice.

“Our current president would be wise to hear Senator McCain on these real security threats and to finally start prioritizing our tax dollars to fund our nation’s real national security needs instead of growing the Obama nanny state,” Palin said.

By early Monday afternoon, Palin's comments had generated 2,400 comments, the Washington Examiner reported.

Not all were complimentary.

“Why defend McCain? He says one thing that’s OKAY and another that's telling of false loyalties,” wrote Cynthia Matthews, while Terry Speelman warned: “Sarah, you should be putting some distance between yourself and Mr. McCain..."

But defenders were delighted, including commenter Darly Marks Nelkin, who gushed: “Couldn’t have said it better myself. Keep speaking your mind.”

Palin hasn't always been so complimentary.

In July, she told Fox News “attempts to destroy the whistleblowers” within McCain campaign meant that she was banned from talking about certain subjects relating to Obama during the 2008 compaign, the Washington Times reported.

“Though I was, during the campaign, running for VP, I was banned from talking about Jeremiah Wright" and Obama's friend "Bill Ayers," she said. "Couldn’t talk about that. Couldn’t talk about Obama’s lack of knowledge, and job inexperience, and the things that he said, like America had 57 states, things like that. This is important for Americans to understand. I was not allowed to talk about things like that because those elitists, those who are the brainiacs in the GOP machine running John McCain’s campaign at the time, said that the media would eat us alive if we brought up these things.”

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