Hate. Not Terror.

Hate.

That—so far—is the semi-official motive for the shooting of six women by a Muslim man at a Seattle Jewish community center. One woman died in the attack.

"I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel," Naveed Afzal Haq, 30, is reported to have yelled before he started shooting.

The attack also came after the official federal anti-terror agency, the FBI, warned Jewish organizations nationwide that the most recent spate of violence in Middle East could prompt attacks on them.

Yet, like Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar's attack at UNC-Chapel Hill in March, there is great reluctance to label Haq's attack an act of terror. Why?

Is it because a terror attack would pre-empt Bush administration claims that its policies, like the PATRIOT Act, have kept America terror-free since 9/11? Is it an attempt to deny that violence in the Middle East does, the evidence indicates, motivate some to do violence in the U.S.? Or do we have some unspoken notion that terror can only result from a conspiracy of two or more persons? Or is it bodycount?

I don't get it.