Huffington Admits Mistake Over Clooney Blog

Arianna Huffington has apologised for the blog posting on her website she attributed to George Clooney, which was actually a compilation of quotes from other sources by the movie star.

Ms Huffington said she had made a "big mistake" by not making it clear the material she used on her blog, The Huffington Post, was not an original post penned by the Oscar-winner himself.

"I now realise that I made a big mistake in posting a blog without clearly identifying that the material in it didn't originate as a blog post, but was pieced together from previous interviews," Huffington wrote on her site.

"I'm sorry I didn't see this earlier," she said, adding that she would not do this again in the future.

She said she considered the misunderstanding a "major lesson learned", adding that she had sent Clooney a sample blog "to show how it's done and encourage him to join the blogosphere".

But Clooney's publicist pointed out that she had not apologised to the actor directly.

"An apology to the readers was appropriate," Stan Rosenfield said. "But to my knowledge, she has not apologised to George."

Last week, Clooney issued a statement denying he wrote the blog, saying he only gave Ms Huffington permission to use a compilation of his views given in interviews with Larry King and the Guardian.

The comments used in the Huffingtonpost.com blog lashed out at American Democrats who voted for the war in Iraq and then claimed they had been "misled" by President George Bush.