Photo: Joe, now Vice President-Elect Biden and Neil, now Lord Kinnock of Bedwelty

The Washington Post Letter to the Editor section today calls this letter (below) "The Fleeting Price of Dishonesty"; I call it a gem:

To the Editor:

When I taught freshman composition, I used then-Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) as an example of the ramifications of plagiarism: After all, he dropped out of the 1988 presidential race when it was revealed that he used, without attribution, parts of a speech by Neil Kinnock, then head of Britain's Labor Party.

How ironic, then, that the Dec. 1 news story "Survey Finds Growing Deceit Among Teens," discussing academic cheating, was placed next to an article about the vice president-elect ["Biden Taps Advisers For Key Positions"]. Clearly, as the article about cheating quoted the president of an ethics institute as saying, "Adults are not taking this very seriously."

ANN R. ALLEN

Salisbury, Md.

Of course, who said there were any adults?