If you had asked me about Alexis Debat, a week ago I would have told you that he was a consultant to ABC on terrorism, an executive with the Nixon Center, an advisor to the French Ministry of Defense as well as that he had a PhD from the University of the Sorbonne in Paris.

All of the above is now into question. Mr. Debat was fired by ABC, resigned from the Nixon Center, was never an advisor the to French Ministry of Defense, and never received his doctorate from La Sorbonne.

Recently an interview of Barack Obama was published under his name in the French magazine, Politique International. Another political web magazine in France, Rue 89, suspected it was fake and investigated. It was fake. Obama never granted the interview.

Did he make it all up? Not exactly, and that is what is interesting.

He hired a ghostwriter to conduct the interview, and submitted it to the paper believing that is was legitimate.

He did work for the Ministry of Defense, but the Ministry claims, as an intern, not as an advisor.

He did attend and completed his studies at La Sorbonne (his thesis is on the Sorbonne's Web site) but never received his diploma.

An investigation is being conducted that will hopefully reveal what is true and what was not. I suspect that we may be in a situation of exaggerations galore.

Exaggeration is very much part of our lives. Caricature is an art form of exaggeration. Advertising very often is an exaggeration of some kind. The FDA makes very sure pharmaceutical companies do not exaggerate by making false or unsubstantiated claims on both the benefits and the risks of the drugs they market.

We all have a tendency to embellish our accomplishments though we rarely exaggerate our shortcomings, (we usually find an excuse for them!)

Some say that it is OK to exaggerate on a resume, but not to lie. How can we distinguish between the two?

An exaggeration could be seen as matter of interpretation of facts while a lie is a deception with the intention to mislead.

It is a slippery slop between a "benign" exaggeration and an outright lie. The more one exaggerates, the closer one gets to lie.

As it is said in the Talmud: If you add to the truth, you subtract from it.

I am afraid that if Alexis Debat applies such mathematics, the result may well be close to zero.

Brian Ross, his boss at ABC and chief investigating reporter said that " he was very knowledgeable" about al-Qaeda and his information was spot on." But adds, "now everything he has done is called into question."