It’s an intriguing parallel: Father and daughter Republican political figures Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney, insulted as warmongers and chicken hawks by different political parties, twenty years apart. But the coverage in the New York Times from 2004 and 2024 couldn’t have been more different.

When Donald Trump attacked Republican turned Kamala Harris supporter Liz Cheney as a “radical warhawk,” he was clearly, in his own crude way, making the same anti-war “chicken-hawk, warmonger!” argument that self-righteous liberals spluttered during the Second Persian Gulf launched by George W. Bush in 2003 – the idea that politicians who advocate for wars without having fought themselves are contemptible, or should volunteer to fight themselves.

Except that 20 years ago, the Times relished those “chicken hawk” attacks on Bush and Republicans, while today, just a few days before a presidential election the media desperately wants Trump to lose, to make such an argument (in admittedly graphic terms) suddenly becomes a violent death threat against Liz Cheney, even being investigated by Arizona’s Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes, for some insane reason.

Michael Gold and Adam Nagourney wrote for Saturday’s edition, under an awful headline, showing themselves unwilling to grasp the meaning of Trump’s remarks, which were clear to anyone not blinded by partisan fever: “Harris Calls Trump’s Violent Language About Liz Cheney ‘Disqualifying.’”

(Confusingly, the two published a separate, very similar article, online only, with some of the missing context: “You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building, saying, ‘Oh, gee, well, let’s send, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.’”)

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump clashed on Friday over violent comments he made suggesting that Liz Cheney, one of his fiercest Republican critics, should be put somewhere “with nine barrels shooting at her.”

Ms. Harris suggested that the remarks should disqualify Mr. Trump from serving as the nation’s chief executive, while he tried to clean up his comments by repeating them in marginally softer terms. He also attacked the vice president for campaigning with Ms. Cheney.

….

Mr. Trump made his remarks imagining violence directed at Ms. Cheney -- a former Wyoming congresswoman and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney -- on Thursday night during an onstage interview with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host.

“She’s a radical war hawk,” Mr. Trump said during the event in Glendale, Ariz. “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”

(Here's the Trump quote in full, where the context is clear: Trump is making a standard anti-war argument: “I don’t blame [former Vice President Dick Cheney] for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual. Very dumb. She’s a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face. You know, they're all war hawks when they're sitting in Washington in the nice buildings saying ‘Oh gee well, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.")

It's hard to believe a 70-year-old journalist like Adam Nagourney truly doesn’t recognize the hippie-era “chicken hawk” argument. Former CNN reporter and Washington Post writer Chris Cillizza did, writing on X: "But he didn't. Like, factually, he didn't." Trump-hating talk show host Bill Maher also recognized reality.

But back in 2004, Times congressional reporter Carl Hulse relished the nasty “chicken hawk” attacks against Bush’s then vice president (and Liz Cheney's father) Dick Cheney (“An Illustrated Guide to Chickenhawks”). So did Times reporter turned lefty columnist Timothy Egan in “The War Hero and the Chicken Hawk.”