To be clear, I don't have access to the raw or finished intelligence detailing the particulars of the Benghazi investigation. (If I did, I wouldn't be writing this.) But I did serve as a CIA analyst during the Bush Administration, and I authored dozens of finished products on terrorists and their strategies. I have seen how this process works. When intelligence from a conflict zone is assessed, the results are not clear, linear, or static. Rather, 21st-century intelligence analysis -- particularly when it is occurring in real-time and on something high-profile -- can be messy, obtuse and, above all, evolving.

So, here are four facts about intelligence analysis to consider before accusing any president (regardless of party) of lying during a crisis:

1. A lot of first-contact intelligence is wrong. When bad things happen, the intelligence (and the assumptions that flow from it) often is contradictory, fragmented, or flat-out erroneous. So, anyone reading the stream of "situation reports" about fast-moving events must take a cautious, measured approach before coming to a definite conclusion.

Moreover, if the intelligence on a fast-moving crisis contradicts an accepted narrative (e.g., that the attacks in Egypt and Libya were related to the offensive YouTube video) it can be hard for both the analysts and their policymaking readers to overcome these early assumptions.

Here's an example: Ten years ago this month, D.C.-area residents were held hostage by the rampages of the Beltway sniper. Over the course of three weeks, the killer slaughtered 10 people and injured others, mostly at random. Based on reasonable FBI and local law-enforcement analysis, the killer was said to be a lone, white, employed, male gunman in a white van. It took additional information and some dumb luck to determine that, other than his gender, every one of these assumptions was totally wrong.

2. Intelligence analysts almost always hedge their language. Analysts don't own crystal balls, but they nevertheless are asked to comment upon the likely future status of current events. So it is a rare document indeed that authoritatively states an analytic judgment, and such statements are almost never made after a fluid situation like the Benghazi attack.

Instead, the vast majority of finished intelligence products are imbued with weasel words: "may have;" "possibly;" "perhaps;" "in part;" etc. The point in authoring intelligence analysis is not to be correct, it is to be not incorrect. This is because, once placed on paper or in the computer file, the analytic judgment stands nakedly till the end of time. As 40-year CIA vet Marty Petersen once explained, "Every time we publish, we go 'on the record' and the record is there forever, for the second guessers, the hindsight experts, and anyone with an agenda." No institution wants to be dressed down by its superiors, publicly shamed, or -- even worse -- subpoenaed by a hostile congressional committee.