Maybe it isn't a problem, but actually something that makes her good at her job? I'd trust a long-time liar to recognize other liars better than an honest person, any day.

People always make this mistake. "Sure, she's a snake, but she'll be our snake". Yeah, right.

Pfizer's shareholders most certainly regret the day when the company thought Mary McLeod, their global head of HR, who was their snake, was a great hire.

A most interesting, alas lengthy, read about the whole sordid affair and why it may be a bad idea to hire a snake (or a multitude of them) can be found here : http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/28/pfizer-jeff...

[edit: grammar]

by that logic, may be we should hire ex-cons for law enforcement? they'd probably make better cops than 'normal' people?

See White Collar Fraud: http://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com

From the author's disclosure:

"I am a convicted felon and a former CPA. As the criminal CFO of Crazy Eddie, I helped my cousin Eddie Antar and other members of his family mastermind one of the largest securities frauds uncovered during the 1980's. I committed my crimes in cold-blood for fun and profit, and simply because I could. If it weren't for the heroic efforts of the FBI, SEC, Postal Inspector's Office, US Attorney's Office, and class action plaintiff's lawyers who investigated, prosecuted, and sued me, I would still be the criminal CFO of Crazy Eddie today."

Not a very good analogy, as ex-cons already underwent punishment and hopefully some reflection. Also, if I follow your logic, then that will ruin Spielberg's Catch Me if You Can for me.

Completely offtopic, and I don't mean anything negative about you when I say this, but I'm always interested in the response when people attribute a director to the success of a movie based on a book.

Did you know that the movie was based on Frank Abagnale's book (also entitled "Catch Me If You Can", or did you just prefer Spielberg's version?

Especially in this case, where the movie is so close to the book, it's questionable. Just like in Sin City, the adaptation is so true to its source material, if you liked one, you're pretty well assured of liking the other.

Hey no problem, a fellow cinephile here. And yes I knew it was on a book but did not read it. I liked the movie for a whole set of reasons (For instance, Christopher Walken's performance) but reading the book would definitely have affected how I value the director's work. I had a similar discussion with my uncle, who is a writer and director, about another movie: The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo (The original version, not the American adaptation). My uncle read the books; I didn't. I really liked the movie, and found the plot rather satisfying to some degree, but my uncle hated it, and said the director simplified things to an alarming extent, losing all the interesting details that made the books successful. So I think reading the books is a good habit if one wants to judge the director's intention, but sometimes I just don't have time.

Update: I reread your question, and I think you want to know if directors are taking too much credit which ought to go to the book writer? I think in this case we might disagree about the director's function, which I think goes far beyond the intricacies of the story.

Thanks for the reply.

As for the clarification, I was more concerned with people attributing the derivative work with the credit of the movie moreso than the director on the whole. I probably only phrased it how I did since you used Spielberg's name directly.

The thing I find irritating (on a grander scale, not pertaining to you, specifically) is when cases like this arise where the movie rides the success of the book.

I get that it's probably specific to people who have read the book vs. people who haven't, but I'm usually interested enough to ask, as sometimes there are cases when directors take the movie to a level the source material didn't, just as there are times when a director is unable to take good source material and turn it into a good movie.

Thanks again for the insight.

I think there is a very fine line between a criminal and a cop per say in mentality. Good cops will know what to look for in criminal behavior and good criminals will know how to look out for cops; not all cops - but I would say its a fine line between the best of both worlds.

Could be the reason double agents are so valuable.

The difference is a thin veneer of legitimacy.

The good ones are already doing consulting work for the cops, FBI, military, intelligence, etc. There are countless books and movies and news reports about this, from organized crime informants, document forgers, computer/network hackers, international espionage, heist masterminds... the list goes on and on.

The majority of crooks - the 'ex-cons' you're talking about - are just shitty petty criminals or violent idiots, and get caught and punished. Why would anyone hire a shitty crook to do counter-intel against a job they failed at previously?

"It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in." -- Lyndon B. Johnson referring to J. Edgar Hoover.

"I'd trust a long-time liar to recognize other liars better"

Hmm. If that is the case then it pays to hire some liars soley to review applications. (After thoroughly vetting them of course and making sure they are not lying about lying to get the job.)

Welcome to ABC, Inc. In these two cubicles we have our vetting department. One screener always tells the truth, while the other always tells a lie. If you could only ask one question... oh never mind.

Lying on a resume doesn't require any inordinate skill -- just loose ethical standards.

It's a big problem when your job involves withdrawing acceptance letters if you find out they lied about their prior education history, which happens fairly regularly.

> No question she was good at her job

Out of curiosity, why do you say so? Not that the dishonesty would make her necessarily bad at her job, but what made her good at it?

She picked me off the waitlist.

Really - she was the Dean of Admissions for a very long time (I think she was at MIT for 28 years overall, something like that) and while I can't remember her personally any more, I know that she had a strong rep both inside the administration and in the related professional community as well. If you're going to be Dean of Admissions, I'd have to think MIT is one of the most prestigious schools in the country for that post, especially when you consider it doesn't allocate large quotas to legacies the way some other top schools do.

Former Ivy Admissions officer who was at Princeton the year before she resigned from MIT. Elite College Admissions is a really strange scene. There are Masters degrees and other credentials that people earn to move up to deanship's, but the actual job itself is completely bureaucratic and mechanical in nature. There were people in my office who'd been there for 20 years and sure, they'd read a lot more applications than me, but they had basically the same exact job as I did. Read applications, visit schools, vote on students twice a year.

So the concept of needing a fancy degree to do the job always seemed pretty funny.

Well, while I do think the idea of giving priority to legacies is pretty stupid and give MIT credit for that, I have other problems with their admissions process (I'm admittedly a bit biased as an MIT reject -- though to be fair it would sound like you are too). I know a decent amount of people at MIT, and while some of them definitely deserve to be there, there are a lot of others that I think don't, and got in for what I think are pretty superficial reasons.