NEW YORK (AP) - CNN apologized Tuesday for mistakenly promoting a story on the search for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden with the headline "Where's Obama?"
A spokesman for Illinois Senator Barack Obama said the apology was accepted.
The blunder came Monday evening on Wolf Blitzer's news show "The Situation Room." Both Soledad O'Brien and Blitzer offered separate apologies during CNN's morning show Tuesday.
CNN called it a "bad typographical error" by its graphics department.
"We want to apologize for that bad typo," Blitzer said. "We also want to apologize personally to Senator Barack Obama. I'm going to be making a call to him later this morning to offer my personal apology."
Tommy Vietor, Obama's press secretary, said he appreciated the bloggers and activists who brought the error to light so quickly and helped make sure it was corrected.
"Though I'd note that the 's' and 'b' keys aren't all that close to each other, I assume it was just an unfortunate mistake, and don't think there was any truly malicious intent," Vietor said.
Instead of the "s" in Osama, CNN put a "b" making it Obama.
Illinois Senator Barack Obama

U.S. Senator Barack Obama's family name may sound similar to that of the given name of Osama bin Laden. 

According to prominent American left-wing online blog Daily Kos, which was the first to report it, CNN mixed the two up on Monday, leading into a segment on bin Laden with the title, "Where's Obama?" on ''The Situation Room'', a show hosted by pundit Wolf Blitzer. The blog posted a photo of the mistake. The author of the blog called it "character defamation." 

CNN has called the mistake "a bad typographical error". Soledad O'Brien and Blitzer apologised separately during CNN's ''American Morning'' on Tuesday.

"We want to apologize for that bad typo," Mr Blitzer said. "We also want to apologize personally to Senator Barack Obama. I'm going to be making a call to him later this morning to offer my personal apology."

Mr Obama's press secretary said the apology was accepted. He also added that he appreciated the online blogs who brought the error to light.

"Though I'd note that the 's' and 'b' keys aren't all that close to each other, I assume it was just an unfortunate mistake, and don't think there was any truly malicious intent," said Tommy Vietor, Obama's press secretary.