Murray Sabrin vs. Chris Christie on Foreign Policy

Murray Sabrin is the slam dunk winner in this contest. Paul Mulshine reports for the New Jersey Star-Ledger:

Up until now, our governor has kept his views on foreign policy to himself.

That was wise, given what Chris Christie said when he finally shared those views with the voters.

That revelation came at the Champions of Jewish Values International Awards Gala in New York on Sunday. In his first major foreign policy address, Christie invoked all the stale phrases and discredited clichés associated with the so-called "neo"-conservative position on foreign policy. The speech culminated in this burning question:

"Who’s out there that you will nominate to make sure that justice is done around the world, that lives are protected, and that liberty and freedom is not only protected where it is but is pushed forward in places where people merely dream of it?"

Good question. Christie clearly intends that the person who will be nominated as the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 will be none other than a certain man from Mendham.

But I’ve got a better question: Where did the governor get the idea that it is the role of the chief executive of the United States to run the entire world?

I got the answer from another New Jersey Republican with aspirations to national office. That’s Murray Sabrin, one of four Republicans running in the June 3 primary for the right to face Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Cory Booker.

Sabrin pointed out that neoconservatism has its roots in the foreign policy of another onetime New Jersey governor with an alliterative name and aspirations to the White House.

"That foreign policy is based on Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s liberal internationalist view of the world, how we have to make the world safe for democracy," Sabrin said.

It is indeed. And that philosophy didn’t work out so well, either for Wilson or for his ideological heirs such as George W. Bush.

Wilson famously got outsmarted in the aftermath of World War I. As for Bush, he managed to lose 4,500 American lives and a trillion dollars turning Iraq into Iran’s firmest ally.