I know about razor bumps and I don’t mean to make it out to be a total non-issue; my problem is with the headline and byline, which seem to make light of what was actually a deeply disturbing speech. “Look at this idiot, ranting about beards, much ado about nothing, don’t even bother reading about what he said, it was just stupid fluff, shoulda been an email lol!” is not the message that the media needs to tell the public when both Hegseth and Trump made several horrifying, fascism-escalating statements today. (And let’s be real, most people don’t actually read the articles, so burying the lede like this is functionally similar to not reporting on it at all.)

His comment about beards is iterally the least problematic/newsworthy part of his speech. Why the fuck would you focus on this and not, I don’t know, his straight outta 1984 “war is peace” statement? Extreme journalistic malpractice.