Find the contradiction:

Perhaps one ought not to-too carefully exegete the statements of federal officials — words like “senseless” are simply part of the jargon — but it seems a point of basic logic that if these Ethiopian Christians were slaughtered “because of their faith,” the terrorists’ brutality was hardly “senseless.” These officials understand that, of course. Such statements are simply victim to, as Jonah would put it, the tyranny of clichés.

(Then again, given the federal government’s previous statements on this subject, naming the victims’ religion is progress.)