Sarah Palin implies Rick Santorum is a ‘Neanderthal’

Sarah Palin is pushing back against Rick Santorum's claim that she might have skipped this week's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington because she had other "business opportunities" or was too busy being a mom.

While she acknowledged Santorum's claim that his comments may have been overblown, Palin still got in a dig at her potential 2012 rival, telling Fox News's Sean Hannity that the ex-Pennsylvania senator was clearly "uninformed."

"I will not call him the knuckle-dragging Neanderthal that perhaps others want to call him, I'll let his wife call him that instead," Palin declared.

The former Alaska governor reiterated that she was too busy to attend CPAC and that she didn't see why it was such a big deal to skip the annual conservative meeting, which she has never attended.

"Just because I'm a mom that does not mean that I didn't want to be there," Palin added. "I'm the proud mother of five … my kids don't hold me back from attending a conference."

(Photo of Palin: Spencer Weiner/AP)