C2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, AUGUST 10 , 2020
with company policy.)
Political commentator Tomi
Lahren, who is a Fox News con-
tributor and hosts a show for the
Fox Nation streaming service,
told her Instagram followers in
September 2019 that she was
“headed over to the UCLA stu-
dent union for [the] election
kickoff” of her then-partner
Brandon Fricke, who declared
himself a candidate for a congres-
sional seat in California that day.
Since moving to Nashville,
Lahren has become a vocal advo-
cate for the recall of Mayor John
Cooper, repeatedly urging her
followers on social media to par-
ticipate in the political effort. In
July, Lahren told her Instagram
followers that she was heading
over to Nissan Stadium to partici-
pate in a petition drive for the
recall effort — which was ulti-
mately unsuccessful.
A Fox News spokesperson said
that Lahren attended Fricke’s
campaign events in a personal
capacity as his fiancée but did not
provide a broader statement ex-
plaining the network’s policy on
contributors engaging in politi-
cal activities.
[email protected]But, there are workarounds.
The Trump-supporting duo Dia-
mond and Silk appeared at cam-
paign rallies for the president
while being paid to host a weekly
show for Fox Nation, a Fox News
Media streaming service, because
the network said they only “li-
censed” their work for the chan-
nel and “are not Fox News con-
tributors or employees.”
While network executives have
reportedly “intervened” to cancel
planned fundraising appearanc-
es by Fox News talent, contribu-
tors have continued to engage in
campaign activity — though they
are prohibited by Fox from being
paid.
Former White House press sec-
retary Sarah Sanders, who joined
Fox News as a paid contributor in
August 2019, appeared at a
Trump campaign rally in Iowa in
January. Then, the following
month, she made a $2,800 dona-
tion to the campaign of Rep.
French Hill (R-Ark.). Two months
later, Sanders penned an email
from the Trump campaign asking
for donations to meet an April
fundraising goal. (Fox News de-
clined to comment on whether
Sanders’s activities were in lineber 2018, the network said in a
statement that “Fox News does
not condone any talent partici-
pating in campaign rallies,” call-
ing the affair “an unfortunate
distraction” that was “addressed”
with the hosts.the political activities of “talent,”
a group that generally encom-
passes a network’s paid on-air
employees. After hosts Sean Han-
nity and Jeanine Pirro appeared
onstage and spoke at a rally for
the Trump campaign in Novem-dential candidate Andrew Yang
both endorsed Biden on air sev-
eral months ago.
In contrast, an MSNBC spokes-
person said the network’s con-
tributors cannot endorse candi-
dates — or get into a race.
Recently, civil rights lawyer
Maya Wiley left her role as an
MSNBC contributor to consider a
run for mayor of New York City.
Steve Schmidt, a longtime Re-
publican political strategist who
renounced his membership in
the party in 2018, left his role as
an MSNBC contributor in early
2019 to advise former Starbucks
CEO Howard Schultz on his po-
tential presidential bid. However,
in the fall, after Schultz decided
against running, Schmidt got his
old job back at the network.
(Sister network NBC News has
a similar policy. “NBC News con-
tributors are not permitted to
endorse candidates, be employed
by political campaigns or PACs,
or themselves run for offices,” a
network spokesperson said.)
Fox News had come the closest
to issuing a public guidance oncal commentator who has gotten
off the 2020 sidelines. Lobbyist
David Urban has been identified
on CNN as a “Trump 2020 Cam-
paign Adviser” in television ap-
pearances, while simultaneously
serving as a paid contributor for
the network. A Trump campaign
spokesperson said this week that
Urban is an unpaid “advisory
board member.”
Steve Cortes, who is now a
senior adviser to the Trump cam-
paign, served as an unpaid mem-
ber of the campaign’s Hispanic
Advisory Council while previous-
ly appearing on CNN as a paid
contributor. “I could assist the
campaign, but not be paid,” he
confirmed to The Post. (Last Sep-
tember, Trump said at a cam-
paign rally that CNN “didn’t like
[Cortes] because he was too posi-
tive on Trump.”)
CNN also allows contributors
to make political donations and
endorse candidates. Former Vir-
ginia governor Terry McAuliffe
(D) and former Democratic presi-
CABLE FROM C1
Cable networks detail political guidelines for contributing commentators
SAUL LOEB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, a Fox News
contributor, has appeared at a rally and has donated to a campaign.the number of imaginings (Sar-
ah’s death scene, which Andersen
did not witness, is told from
various points of view, including
her dog’s), no matter the inter-
views with old friends, no matter
the lovingly preserved photos
and diary entries, the story can
never end differently.
“The Heart and Other Mon-
sters” is a relatively slim volume
at 212 pages. One cannot help but
wonder what Andersen could
have accomplished had she al-
lowed herself more space. Al-
though the recovery community
urges against taking inventories,
a memoir does take inventory of a
life’s events, and Andersen moves
at a clip that sometimes feels
obstructive to her own purposes.
I was left wondering whether her
cancer and sojourns in Italy tied
into her own coke-and-alcohol
tailspin. I was curious to spend
more time with Rose and Sarah
as children, to see them playing
(as Sarah does in a beautiful
interlude about believing in fair-
ies) and becoming, to see what
existed of who they wanted to be
before they had to duck and cover
from their nasty father and step-
father. I would have happily read
more of Andersen’s deft inhabita-
tion of Sarah’s point of view. The
book certainly works at 212 pag-
es, but the inquisitive reader in
me — and perhaps the addict as
well — wanted more, more, more.
“The Heart and Other Mon-
sters” is a primer not only for
addiction but for grief and love.
Sarah should be alive today, a fact
that sits heavily with Andersen.
After they first learn of Sarah’s
death, Andersen’s stepmother
takes Andersen’s hand and tells
her “It’s all on you now.”
T he book bears the massive
responsibility of preserving Sar-
ah’s legacy, but it also asks the
reader to bear some responsibili-
ty for understanding Sarah’s com-
plex humanity. Any addict can
imagine herself in Sarah’s place:
Now it’s the nonaddict’s turn.
This kind of imaginative empathy
seems particularly crucial as peo-
ple continue to die of opioid
overdoses all over the country. So
read “The Heart and Other Mon-
sters” and start seeing addicts as
human. It’s all on you now.
[email protected]Rebekah Frumkin, author of the
novel “The Comedown,” is a
professor of English and creative
writing at Southern Illinois University.emerging as the academic and
artistic success and Sarah strug-
gling to find her footing. The
book is filled with scenes of a
young, hotheaded Rose telling
Sarah to stop screwing up, and
Sarah complaining that it’s hard
to live in Rose’s shadow. When
Rose’s alcoholism costs her a job
and she resolves to get clean, her
sobriety comes faster and is lon-
ger-lasting than her sister’s. Sar-
ah is better acquainted with the
netherworld of addiction and its
dingy chutes and channels, all
death-bound. “I’m clean,” Rose
reminds Sarah in a conversation
about the benefits of sobriety.
“Says the person who has never
detoxed or gone to rehab,” Sarah
shoots back.
When I first tried drugs, I came
to understand that I could post-
pone the nastiness and embar-
rassment of almost-adulthood
with a feeling that was very good.
I liked the rituals of drugs, the
cutting of lines or the psychedelic
hikes into the woods or the drawn
curtains, and I liked feeling ele-
vated. I understand well what
Sarah must have been chasing:
More than feeling good, I wanted
freedom from the cages of nor-
malcy and smallness and fear.
No addict sets out to throw her
life away. The problem is that
drugs are indifferent to life, and
brutal, and short-lasting. The
first of the 12 steps asks us to
recognize that we are powerless
over our addictions. But before
we became powerless over our
addictions, we were powerless
over the harsh and loveless world
for which the drugs were made.
Who wouldn’t want that world to
be a better place, even for just an
hour?
Andersen’s prose rings not just
with the fierce love of a grieving
sister but the unblinking compas-
sion of a fellow addict. “The
Heart and Other Monsters” is a
tender chronicle of the things
that stood in Sarah’s way: a socio-
pathic stepfather, an abusive fa-
ther, body dysmorphia, romantic
dependence on toxic partners.
The list goes on, and most of us
who were socialized as female
can tick many of the same boxes.
Andersen, whose appetites for
alcohol and cocaine placed her in
some heavily compromised posi-
tions, seems to suffer from survi-
vor’s guilt after her sister’s death.
She recounts telling Sarah that if
Sarah died, it would ruin her
(Rose’s) life. She recounts telling
Sarah that she can have any life
she wants. She recounts telling
Sarah that their mom is “at her
wit’s end” and Sarah needs to get
it together. Talking to her sister,
Andersen appears alternately an-
gry, desperate, confused, benefi-
cent.
Andersen has written the story
of another’s life in which she is a
supporting character: It’s a feat
not only of imagination but of
love and empathy. A life cut as
short as Sarah’s could have taken
all manner of exhilarating twists
and turns, and in Andersen’s
deeply felt, complex account, Sar-
ah’s life is allowed to occupy the
dimensions it could have had it
not been overtaken by addiction.
“I have gone to great lengths to
resurrect her,” Andersen writes.
“I have examined each memory
and replayed every shared mo-
ment, but I cannot summon a
story that doesn’t end with her
death.” This is the weight borne
both by Andersen and “The Heart
and Other Monsters”: No matterBOOK WORLD FROM C1The story of an addict,
written by an addict
BLOOMSBURY
Author Rose Andersen’s sister
Sarah died at 24 of an overdose.The prose rings not just
with the fierce love of a
grieving sister but the
unblinking compassion
of a fellow addict.
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