These Times

The hosts are pros, seem to genuinely engage in dialogue with each other and their guests, and possess appealing gifts for articulation. Episodes 118 and 119 are particularly outstanding examples of excellent context communication.

Always thoughtful and informative. Both hosts comment on their subjects intelligently and without any ideological slant or cant.

However, neither of the hosts actually has a deep understanding of American politics, but they insist on talking about it anyway. I got annoyed with them taking polls and factoids at face value, without interrogating whether the things they were seeing were actually true. The depth of dishonesty in the world today can’t be pierced by just taking what people say (even about their own motivations) at face value.

Helen is incredible. She doesn't speak about things she hasn't thoroughly researched. She's reasonable and unprejudiced on all subjects and looks at all sides of a situation. Tom is exactly why journalists are not respected, and why "fake news" is a thing. He's shallow in his opinions, prejudiced in every view that isn't far left and criminally amateurish in his research and thinking. All his understanding appearing to have come from reading whatever some ideologue has written on wikipedia or what some "friend" in Westminster tells him. Helen has to correct him on nearly every subject, repeatedly. It's like listening to a highly intelligent, disciplined mind, have a conversation with a bigoted parrot. Polly want a new co-host? I have to give it four stars, even though Helen deserves all five.