CBS News apologized Monday for a segment on “60 Minutes” about President Bush’s service in the National Guard.

It’s an amazing embarrassment for CBS News and anchor Dan Rather. For more than two weeks, Rather has defended the authenticity of documents that seemed to establish that Bush had received preferential treatment during his time in the Texas Air National Guard.

Now CBS says it was “deliberately misled” by Bill Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel who has accused allies of President Bush of “cleansing” his official records.

Burkett has been a vocal critic of President Bush and has made his allegations numerous times. CBS originally kept his identity as the source of the documents secret. Now that they have admitted that the documents are most likely fake, they’ve revealed Burkett’s name.

It’s clear that CBS News and the team that compiled this report did not properly vet the documents. Rather, in a statement, said that it was a “good faith” error, meaning there was no intent to mislead the public.

The authenticity of the memos was questioned almost immediately. Questions first surfaced on the Internet and then made their way into more conventional media sources.

If the problems with the documents could be so quickly discovered by individuals writing on the Internet without access to the originals and without knowledge of the source, how were the documents able to slip through a big-league operation like CBS News?

In the news business, as in any other, mistakes happen. The Sun Journal is certainly not immune to our own. But mistakes by the media are special – they are always very public and can do great harm. That’s why there’s a special obligation to set the record straight as soon as possible.

CBS and Dan Rather made a serious mistake, and then they were slow to acknowledge it. Their credibility is damaged and, with it, the credibility of the profession.