MoveOn's ad referring to General David Petraeus as "General Betray Us" is stupid for two reasons: (a) because hanging your argument on phonetic coincidence is puerile and reeks of powerlessness, and (b) because it gave the Weekly Standard an opportunity to run a story with the headline "MoveOn.org Calls Petraeus a Traitor; Do Democrats in Congress agree?"
HuffPo's Jeffrey Feldman argues that "the word 'betray' used by MoveOn in the ad implies many meanings, but does not directly imply 'traitor' -- unless that definition is introduced."
Unfortunately, it's a bit more complicated that. Merriam Webster gives two definitions for traitor:
1 : one who betrays another's trust or is false to an obligation or dutyWhat's happened here, obviously, is that the Standard is deliberately confusing the two meanings. It's fair to say that MoveOn was accusing Petraeus of being a traitor in sense one. But TWS would like for everyone to believe they accused him of being a traitor in the much more inflammatory sense two.
2 : one who commits treason
