Before he made a fortune in the car alarm business, Darrell Issa was a car thief. He denies it, of course. See, he doesn’t call it car thieving. He calls it an “act of theft,” which is his way of covering up his misdeeds. So, when he says he committed “an act of theft,” that doesn’t mean he stole some cars. That means he didn’t. It’s exactly the same with the president and Benghazi. In repeatedly calling the Benghazi attack an “act of terror” the president was trying to deny that it was a terrorist attack. “Oh, no, it wasn’t a terrorist attack. It was merely an act of terror.”
See, as Darrell Issa said, “a terrorist attack is different than an act of terror.” Just like an act of acting is different than acting, and an act of punching someone in the face is different from battery.
You can try this with anything, particularly if you have committed a crime. “I didn’t murder anyone, I merely committed an act of murder, which isn’t the same as killing someone.”
Except that, it is.