Lisa Murkowski Is Very Brave and Wise, Explains Lisa Murkowski
not like all these other asshats
Some people on the Widget Control Commission wanted to fund two million additional widgets, and some people on the Widget Control Commission wanted to completely stop funding new widgets for a while. Fortunately, though, the Widget Control Commission is very moderate and very centrist, so people met in the middle and ultimately agreed to fund 800,000 additional widgets. What are the widgets for? What’s their purpose and function, and why do we need 800,000 new widgets, and what will be the effects that follow the funding of all those extra widgets? No one knows, and no one is really trying to ask. What’s important is that some people wanted a lot, and some people didn’t want any, and so they struck a deal and got an answer somewhere in the middle. The middle is good. The middle is responsible. Making deals is good. Compromise is good. A middle number of new widgets is better than a number of new widgets at the extremes, though no one understands what the widgets are or what they do or why we would want them or what effects they might have.
You now understand the existence of Senator Lisa Murkowski, a dry pot of paste that took human form sometime in the last century and started speaking like a pot of dry paste. To, apparently, some degree of acclaim. Murkowski recently published her memoirs, telling her life story and explaining her belie— wait, where are you going?
There’s a joke book that was published years ago under the title, The Wisdom of Joe Biden, and when you opened the book all the pages were blank. This book is precisely like that, except that there are things on the pages that appear in the shape of words.
It is good to be pro-institution. It is good to be a problem-solver. It is not good to not be a problem solver! It is good to pass good laws. Good laws are good. It is good to have consensus. It is not good to be extreme. It is good to be diverse. It is good to have democracy that comes from communities! Now we’ll have pudding cup, and then naptime.
She just…goes on like this. What does she think of being at war in Afghanistan for twenty years and then losing and leaving the whole country to the Taliban? It is good to be in the center and to compromise. What does she think of the federal government being $37 trillion in debt? It is good to be in the center and to compromise. What does she think of demographic decline, rural decay, widespread homelessness, a growing crisis of poor metabolic health and chronic illness, the four years that the border was wide open, the obvious cultural sickness of the major cities? It is good to be in the center and to compromise.
Pick a page.
A good leader gets things done. What things? Things. A good leader solves problems, like the way the drain pump on your top-loader goes out sometimes and the appliance repairman comes and puts in a new one. A society is a machine that needs a little elbow grease, from time to time, a little tinkering and a new motor or something, so we have the United States Senate. A good leader votes a lot, and bills get passed, which is solving problems and not being obstructionist. She voted to stop climate change with new energy policy that weans us from oil and she advocated for new oil fields. She voted for stuff a lot. Voting for stuff a lot is being practical.
Really, just dive in anywhere.
She is for solutions. She is not against solutions, she is for them!
You try. Flip through this book at the library or the bookstore and find the part where she explains her political views, her principles. Maybe I just didn’t notice that part, because the book spools by at such a high level of intellectual sophistication.
Murkowski, by the way, failed the bar exam four times, then scored an appointment to the Senate from the governor of Alaska, who coincidentally was a guy named Frank Murkowski. Daddy gave his idiot daughter a Senate seat. She hesitated, she explains, but then she realized that she had to step up and sacrifice, like a soldier on the battlefield, taking her experience as a PTA leader and her four years in the state legislature and gifting her talents to the American people:
“After all, members of our military make greater sacrifices for our country.” Being gifted a Senate seat is a sacrifice, a hit she took for you and me.
The last time something was this empty, NASA sent Voyager to explore it.
Flawless reader review at Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2JSATI4SMN8CO/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0593728661
Customer Review
crg
1.0 out of 5 stars A Memoir No One Asked For, From a Senator Who Forgot What “Home” Even Means
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2025
Format: Hardcover
Reading Far From Home feels less like diving into the life of a stateswoman and more like being stranded in a tundra of mediocrity, political cowardice, and recycled platitudes. If Lisa Murkowski’s goal was to produce a book as forgettable as her Senate career, she’s succeeded with flying colors.
Murkowski opens her book with tales of Alaska — majestic landscapes, hardy people, and her “deep connection” to the land. One would think this might be a love letter to her state. Instead, it reads more like the passive-aggressive Yelp review of a failed guest at a wilderness Airbnb. She speaks of independence, but governs like a windsock in a snowstorm — always shifting, never standing.
The writing is wooden, uninspired, and oozes with the polished sterility of a D.C. PR intern trying to punch up a farewell letter no one will read. You’d expect insight into the inner workings of Congress, perhaps reflections on integrity or leadership. What you get instead is a lukewarm defense of being permanently noncommittal — a political Switzerland with none of the chocolate or precision.
Her attempts at “courageous centrism” are as hollow as her prose. Murkowski brands herself a maverick, but her book shows she’s more like the Senate’s beige wallpaper: technically present, occasionally noticed, but never essential. She pats herself on the back for being the last moderate Republican, all while playing both sides so expertly that you forget what her actual principles are — if any ever existed.
Even in recounting moments of national importance, her tone remains as bland and detached as her voting record. Roe v. Wade? Climate change? Jan. 6? Murkowski spins each moment into a PR-safe lullaby, carefully avoiding anything that might accidentally resemble conviction.
As for the title, Far From Home, it’s tragically accurate. Murkowski has been politically adrift for years — unmoored from her constituents, her party, and evidently, any literary talent. It’s less a memoir and more a 250-page justification for being a career placeholder.
In short: Far From Home is a tedious, self-congratulatory dirge from a politician who mistook indecision for leadership and a Word doc for a memoir. If you’re looking for political insight, moral courage, or literary skill — keep looking. Lisa Murkowski may have been born in Alaska, but based on this book, she left her soul somewhere inside the Beltway and never bothered to go back.
Avoid at all costs — unless you need a coaster for your lukewarm coffee.
Yesterday we addressed gaslighting and today we see a 250 page example of that very technique. Chris you’re on a roll here.