Hypocrisy Or Nuance?

E.J. Dionne today says that the concept of states' rights is cool, but only when it advances certain, particular policies. You can guess which policies he's talking about. So is this yet another one of those sophisticated parsing of the policy landscape to come up with a highly nuanced overarching solution set? Or is it a naked advocation of hypocrisy? Seems to me it could only be the former if you were one of those individuals who thought you had all the answers.