Regarding Earline Byers’ “Over the Fence” column and the letter from 11-year-old Elizabeth Scher of Puyallup on what she would do if she was president. She is to be congratulated for writing to a paper and expressing her views, if indeed they really are her views, and being hopefully interested in the world around her.

However, I don’t want her or anyone with her opinions in charge of the country, even if I am 64 years old. We already have enough of them running around. They are called Liberal Democrats, ACLU members, People for the American Way, etc. Some even have names like Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Ward Churchill, Michael Moore, and Cindy Sheehan.

We should stop spending on the war and spend it on food banks and homeless shelters. That’s fine if you want to exclude the rest of the world and cuddle up within your own borders and forget the hundreds of thousands killed by Saddam Hussein, the rapes committed by his own sons, the genocide in the Sudan, Islamic terrorism in Indonesia.

The terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, not Iraq. Remember, not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim. Don’t you care about the Iraqi civilians being killed by their own people due to religious and political factions all jockeying for power?

Yes, now over 2,000 Americans have died in Iraq. It’s war, Elizabeth. President Bush has guts and is a true American, which can’t be said for most liberals.

Remember, we have laws in this country and a constitution. And you can’t always do what you want even if you are President; both sides of the political isle find that out once in awhile.

You didn’t mention banning God from the schools and the public arena, homosexual marriage, tolerance and diversity.

People like you are the future of the country, just don’t blow it. Read history and not just what they tell you in school, and go to church, and not a liberal one, and do it every week. I think there is still hope.

Phil Stanat

Des Moines