Coming to the defense of Justin Timberlake after his DWI is Gayle King who says he's a responsible, upstanding dude who just made a one-off bad decision when he allegedly chose to drink and drive.
The newscaster gave her take on "CBS Mornings" Wednesday after a segment about JT's arrest ... saying he's a great guy who isn't usually a reckless person -- and, calling his alleged slip-up a "stupid mistake."
Gayle adds there's no excuse for driving drunk in general ... and says she's sure Justin knows he messed up.
And she isn't using words like "allegedly" when sharing her thoughts here -- but when one of her co-anchors pointed out that this is just what cops are claiming, she acknowledged that what they say they saw as probable cause to arrest him didn't sound very good.
Here's the story followed by Gayle's comments