There are many nauseating features of Hillary Clinton’s human-rights speech. There’s the hypocrisy of touting our forthrightness in dealing with China. (Does the Dalai Lama know? Why no freewheeling interchange in China between Obama and democracy activists? Why did she tell the Chinese leaders in February that human rights wouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of the important stuff?). There’s the loathsome confession that our legal and well-founded anti-terror policies are human-rights sins to be expiated. And then there’s her discussion of Iran.

She does her best to conceal the unconcealable: that at a critical juncture, we refused to deny legitimacy to the Iranian regime and to support both rhetorically and financially the democracy advocates. So, as Hillary is wont to do, she shades and minces words — and downright lies:

We acknowledge that one size does not fit all. And when old approaches aren’t working, we won’t be afraid to attempt new ones, as we have this year by ending the stalemate of isolation and instead pursuing measured engagement with Burma. In Iran, we have offered to negotiate directly with the government on nuclear issues, but have at the same time expressed solidarity with those inside Iran struggling for democratic change. As President Obama said in his Nobel speech, “They have us on their side.”

And we will hold governments accountable for their actions, as we have just recently by terminating Millennium Challenge Corporation grants this year for Madagascar and Niger in the wake of government behavior. As the President said last week, “we must try as best we can to balance isolation and engagement; pressure and incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time.”

So the Obami were on the side of the protesters? Or, rather, did they cut the legs out from under them by plunging ahead with negotiations, bestowing complete legitimacy on a regime that had stolen an election and brutalized its people? And just how did we hold Tehran “accountable” for its actions? We haven’t. Not in the least.

But it’s in the Q&A that the full incoherence and abject hypocrisy of the Obami’s nonhuman-rights policy is revealed. When asked how we balance concerns about Iran’s nuclear program with human rights, Clinton gushed gibberish:

Right. Well, it is a balancing act. But the more important balancing act is to make sure that our very strong opposition to what is going on inside Iran doesn’t in any way undermine the legitimacy of the protest movement that has taken hold. Now, this is one of those very good examples of a hard call. After the election and the reaction that began almost immediately by people who felt that the election was invalid, put us in a position of seriously considering what is the best way we can support those who are putting their lives on the line by going into the streets. We wanted to convey clear support, but we didn’t want the attention shifted from the legitimate concerns to the United States, because we had nothing to do with the spontaneous reaction that grew up in response to the behavior of the Iranian Government.

So it’s been a delicate walk, but I think that the activists inside Iran know that we support them. We have certainly encouraged their continuing communication of what’s going on inside Iran. One of the calls that we made shortly after the election in the midst of the demonstrations is this unit of these very tech-savvy young people that we’ve created inside the State Department knew that there was a lot of communication going on about demonstrations and sharing information on Twitter, and that totally unconnected to what was going on in Iran, Twitter had planned some kind of lapse in service to do something on their system – you can tell I have no idea what they were doing. (Laughter.) I mean, you know, I don’t know Twitter from Tweeter, so – (laughter) – to be honest with you.

So these young tech people in the State Department called Twitter and said don’t take Twitter down right now. Whatever you’re going to do to reboot or whatever it is – (laughter) – don’t take Twitter down because people in Iran are dependent upon Twitter. So we have done that careful balancing.

Now, clearly, we think that pursuing an agenda of nonproliferation is a human rights issue. I mean, what would be worse than nuclear material or even a nuclear weapon being in the hands of either a state or a non-state actor that would be used to intimidate and threaten and even, in the worst-case scenario, destroy?

What??!! Nuclear proliferation becomes a human-rights issue. And walking a fine line means doing nothing to fund or lend aid to the protesters. As of now, the Obami have failed on both counts. Iran’s thugocracy is fully established and its nuclear program is proceeding full steam ahead. But she sort of knows what Twitter is. (Her speech doesn’t end there, by the way, and should be savored complete and unedited.)

This is what passes for “smart” diplomacy. But it’s revealing. Never does it dawn on the Obami that human rights, support for democracy, and regime change might actually enhance our objectives and afford us a solution to the problem of an Islamic fundamentalist state’s acquisition of nuclear arms. She’s in the business of walking fine lines and delivering double talk, which speaks volumes about how fundamentally unserious this group is about human rights.