way to GO!, midshipman valedictorian Adam Jay Vokac

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>From newsmax:

Monday June 19, 2000; 7:25 PM EDT

Hillary Hit on Guns and Tobacco at Merchant Marine Commencement

It was a scene right out of first lady Hillary Clinton’s past, when – as a
Wellesley valedictorian – she taunted her college’s commencement speaker,
Massachusetts Sen. Edward Brooke, as an out-of-touch limousine liberal.
Hillary’s speech was such an instant hit with the liberal intelligentsia she
was profiled in Life magazine.

On Monday, as Senate candidate Hillary Clinton was waiting to give her own
commencement address to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point,
N.Y., midshipman valedictorian Adam Jay Vokac gave her some of her own
medicine.

As the staunchly pro-gun control, anti-tobacco first lady sat listening just
feet away, Vokac went on a tear about the evils of big government and
spreading federal regulation.

“Guns and cigarettes have been hot topics lately,” began the defiant
graduate. “It seems that every day one reads about more laws and legal
actions against these industries. Soon they will be so restricted as to be
essentially illegal.”

Hidden behind dark sunglasses, Mrs. Clinton didn’t seem to flinch as Vokac
continued.

“I am not a smoker, nor do I own a gun. But shouldn’t a responsible
individual be allowed to smoke or own a gun in a free country?”

The crowd applauded as Mrs. Clinton sat unmoved.

Vokac called it “a basic human right” not to have to live in fear of the
legal system. He challenged his fellow graduates to “strive to keep and
regain our individual liberties promised to us in the Bill of Rights.

“We must not stand by complacently. The longer we wait to assert our
freedom, the longer it will be to truly obtain.”

If Vokac’s speech made the first lady nostalgic for the days when she played
the defiant rebel, her own prepared remarks betrayed no hint of it.