Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

When I read on Wednesday that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will start testing U.S. service members for testosterone deficiency, I thought it was an internet joke, maybe a post from the Onion, a play on Dr. Strangelove‘s Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper ranting against fluoride as a Communist plot to sap our precious bodily fluids.

But no, it turns out there’s a video, which seems to be real, of the former Fox News host and Army major announcing annual tests of all members of the armed forces over the age of 30—and testosterone shots for those who score low—as a way of “restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities” and retaining our military’s “leading edge of lethality.” He claims that “our most decisive tactical advantage will always be the individual Warfighter.” Hence his new slogan: “The High-T Department of War.”

Hegseth has spouted a lot of rubbish in his 18 months as the Pentagon’s top civilian and the Trump........

© Slate