Sometimes it seems as if the shock jock beat touches every corner of InfoWorld and MediaLand… the latest evidence involves the recent — and extremely controversial — decision by Scottish authorities to release on humanitarian grounds the Libyan man known as the “Lockerbie bomber.”
The decision has caused much public comment, including some by US FBI Director Robert Mueller, which occasioned an angry reply from former Scottish First Minister Henry McLeish, who also dismissed calls for a boycott of Scotland “as the brainchild of “certain newscasters and shock jocks,” as the Associated Press reported :
FORMER SCOTTISH PM TO FBI DIRECTOR: ZIP IT!
AP: former Scottish First Minister Henry McLeish slammed Mueller’s criticism as “wholly wrong” and said the FBI chief should keep his thoughts to himself.
“The Americans have a right to make their views known, but I think it was wholly wrong for the director of the FBI to speak in such striking terms, which were personal, and which made a direct attack on the Scottish criminal justice system,” said McLeish, who served as Scottish leader from 2000 until his resignation in 2001.
McLeish also disputed the notion that the Lockerbie bomber’s release would poison relations with the United States. Web sites have been set up in the U.S. calling for a boycott of Scottish goods and visits to the country.
“I don’t buy for a minute the idea that this is going to destroy our special relationship with the U.S., nor will it destroy trade between Britain and America,” McLeish told the BBC.
As for a boycott, “it would bother me if I thought it was going to happen,” he said, dismissing the idea as the brainchild of “certain newscasters and shock jocks.”
