When is a terrorist not a terrorist?

Authorities took a man into custody for attempting to bring a homemade explosive device onto an airplane in Oklahoma City. The man is, apparently, not a terrorist.

The Washington Post reports:

Officials have found no apparent connection between Charles Alfred Dreyling Jr. and any terrorist group or activity, said Agent Gary Johnson, an FBI spokesman.

Dreyling, 24, was going through the security checkpoint at Will Rogers World Airport on Wednesday when a Transportation Security Administration employee noticed something suspicious in his bag on the X-ray machine, Johnson said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Troester described the device as a carbon-dioxide cartridge with a black-powder detonator.

"No apparent connection" to any terrorist activity? What a curious thing to say. Couldn't trying to board a plane with a bomb be fairly characterized as terrorist activity? Is this similar to the tendency of reporters and prosecutors to avoid labeling Eric Rudolph a "terrorist?"

Let's imagine that, instead of Charles Dreyling, the Oklahoma suspect's name was Muhammad Muhammad Aziz al Muhammad. Do you imagine that there might be a similar reluctance to "connect" him to terrorist activity for trying to carry a bomb onto an airplane?