If the U.S. government calls the Fort Hood massacre anything other than "workplace violence," then it would be an explicit admission that the U.S. military had been infiltrated by an Islamic radical who was hell-bent on carrying out an attack on his fellow soldiers.
This isn't just an Obama administration issue, either. The perpetrator in this case had been a military doctor long before Obama was in office.
Formal classification of the Fort Hood Massacre as an act of terrorism will open up a can of worms over Nidal Hasan’s entire chain of command all the way up to the Army Chief of Staff who called it “workplace violence”.
Families of Purple Heart recipients killed or wounded that day will be lawyering up & demanding to know why the terrorist Hasan’s superiors did not intervene sooner.
This award gives them legal standing, finally.