Get out of Afghanistan

LOS ANGELES — For years, since I moved there to cover Watergate, I have wanted to write a column about how Washington really works — a checklist of sorts. But I never got around to it. The closest I ever got was quoting the late San Francisco humor writer Arthur Hoppe. Writing from 3,000 miles away, he said, if I remember correctly: Washington is 67 square miles, about as high as the Washington Monument, and surrounded on all sides by reality. Last week, Joe Scarborough, former Florida congressman, talking head on MSNBC, and now guest columnist for Politico.com, did a……