More barbs in the brewing GOP foreign-policy debate that looks like it’s going to be personified at least in part by two of 2016’s probable contenders, with Chris Christie playing up the hawkish side of the argument and Rand Paul reppin’ the libertarian viewpoint. In response to Gov. Christie’s blanket-characterization last week of foreign-policy and national-security libertarianism as a “dangerous thought,” Sen. Paul promised that he wouldn’t shy away from returning fire if Christie was going to try and attack him personally and write him off as isolationist — and on Hannity on Monday night, return fire Paul did.

He may have heard that the Republican party is on life support in the northeast. Republicans are in danger of becoming an endangered species, so it’s not real smart for Republicans to be attacking Republicans. But I would remind him that I think what’s dangerous in our country is to forget that we have a Bill of Rights, to forget about privacy, to give up all of our liberty to say ‘we’re going to catch terrorism, but we have to live in a police state.’ I think it’s really kind of sad and cheap that he would use the cloak of 9/11 victims, and say, ‘I’m the only one who cares about these victims.’ Hogwash. If he cared about protecting this country, maybe he wouldn’t be in this, “Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme all the money you have in Washington, or don’t have,’ and he’d be a little more fiscally responsive and know that the way we defend our country, the way we have enough money for national defense, is by being frugal and not by saying, ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme’ all the time. … I’m for spying in terrorists, I’m not for spying on every American. And so people like the governor who are, I guess, flippant about privacy, flippant about the 4th Amendment, and flippant about the Bill of Rights, they do an injustice to our soldiers. Our soldiers are laying their life on the line for the Bill of Rights. So, if we’re not going to stand up for the Bill of Rights, we don’t care about liberty, then I think it’s really a mistake and we’ve gone too far.