Although this year’s presidential race has not been a season of gentle ironies, there’s one to be found in the revelation of what are alleged to be Hillary Clinton’s closed-door speeches. After all the fuss about the bombshells they might contain, they show a warmer and more relaxed figure than the guarded, elusive and sometimes evasive persona she presents to the public.

Just as refreshing, they show a disarming candor — including candor about lack of candor. Politicians need to be two-faced, Mrs. Clinton supposedly said (the campaign has not confirmed the leaked documents’ authenticity). If her frank critique of frankness proves to be more of a political nonevent than a bombshell, as has been the case to date, that will be for a good reason: Most of us know she is right, even if we don’t admit it.

When charged by Stephen Douglas with being two-faced, Abraham Lincoln replied not with a denial but with a quip (“If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?”). Citing his example, Mrs. Clinton is reported to have said this in a 2013 speech to the National Multifamily Housing Council:

“You just have to sort of figure out how to — getting back to that word, ‘balance’ — how to balance the public and the private efforts that are necessary to be successful, politically, and that’s not just a comment about today,” she said. She added: “Politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s watching all of the back-room discussions and the deals, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So you need both a public and a private position.”

Right. In politics, hypocrisy and doublespeak are tools. They can be used nefariously, illegally or for personal gain, as when President Richard M. Nixon denied Watergate complicity, but they can also be used for legitimate public purposes, such as trying to prevent a civil war, as in Lincoln’s case, or trying to protect American prestige and security, as when President Dwight D. Eisenhower denied that the Soviet Union had shot down a United States spy plane.