I want to see Palin naked!

I keep waiting for the announcement that Playboy has offered Sarah Palin $1 million to pose nude in time for their November election issues. That’s what they do with these instant sorts of celebrities isn’t it?

Me, I’m a knee-jerk liberal whose knee jerks most liberally whenever it's near a conservative’s crotch. It’s been twitching like crazy every time I see news of the Republican National Convention.

Until selecting Palin, John McCain had done absolutely nothing to fire up the senselessly rabid far right he’ll need to have even a chance of becoming president. It’s what I predicted in spring as he, one by one, he began dispatching the feckless bunch of Republican primary contenders, namely Mitt Romney, Rudy Guiliani, Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee.

Of those, only Huckabee had a chance of energizing his base while still engaging swing voters. He’s funny, thoughtful, experienced and as he likes to say, “he’s a conservative who’s not mad at anybody.”

That’s something that appeals to guys like me. It drives me crazy to see a party build an entire campaign based on hate. George W. Bush and Karl Rove were masters at it.

They hated the media. They hated liberals. They hated gays. They hated Mexicans. They hated negotiation. They hated human rights. They hated the environment. They hated anyone who thought there should be sensible restrictions on guns.

I’m basically at peace with all those things so they left me no choice but to hate ‘em right back.

But after eight years of it, I’m tired of hating. My biggest problem with Bush has been that, at a time when every American was yearning to be united, he cast anyone who thought differently from him as an American enemy, a supporter of Al-Quada. Go ahead and search, you won’t find any “Go bin Laden!” posters hanging in my office.

That’s why I thought the Obama/McCain election was going to bring about a refreshing blast of sanity. It seemed like they were going to argue about each other’s positions, experience and potential. Sure, there’d be some sharp jabs, but they seemed to respect each other as patriotically motivated men with different solutions.

Now pretty, sexy Sarah comes out and it’s all about hate again. She hates me and we’ve never even met. It’s us against them all over again, only it’s really us against us.

McCain’s risky pick endangers us all. Her fanatical enthusiasts -- the ones you saw weeping on the convention floor -- aren’t for her because of her experience or her grit. They’re for her because she’s for killing things like polar bears and preserving things like babies no matter what the circumstance. Personally, I admire her motherhood and her decisions to my core. I just don’t want her or anyone else telling my wife or daughters what they should do in that same sad situation. And with all our problems, do we really want to decide yet another election over abortion?

And that’s not me or some liberal pundit talking. That’s Pat Buchanan, Charles Krauthammer and many equally befuddled conservative commentators. Did you hear Peggy Noonan, the Wall Street Journal opinion monger and a former Ronald Reagan speechwriter? She was caught on a live mic saying, basically, who the hell is this? Why did he pick her? It’s a mistake, or as she said over the air picking Palin was “political bullshit.”

But don’t try and tell that to the convention weepers who are already doing the cold calculations as to when she might replace a cancer-damaged senior citizen who’ll be the oldest president ever if he’s elected. It’s clear, they have no enthusiasm for McCain. For them, it’s all about Palin.

I don’t understand why so many people who so loudly claim to love one savior are always so restlessly seeking another.

Me, I’m not worried. I’m suspecting another scandal or two is about to erupt and force her off the ticket.. Reporters from the hated media -- and, man, did all their press bashing motivate that rabid bunch -- are right now scouring Alaska for scoop. My money’s on that nonpartisan crackerjack team from National Enquirer to get the goods.

And who knows? Maybe she will pose for Playboy and throw her candidacy into more turmoil.

I’ll buy one.

Part of being a peace-loving, gay-defending, gun-confiscating, pot-legalizing tree hugger is an absolute duty to support the First Amendment in all its sordid glory.

Reading Playboy means I’m just being patriotic.