Coverage of Jack de Vries’ affair with an aide is unprecedented in the Netherlands, writes Kaj Leers.

Something extraordinary happened in the Netherlands on Tuesday May 11: for the first time ever in Parliamentary history, a serving government junior minister sent out a statement in which he admitted to having an extramarital affair.
Jack de Vries, a long time political campaign aide and confidant of prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende of the Christian Democrats (CDA), is in a relationship with his female aide at the ministry of defence. De Vries is married with two children. The official statement sent a shockwave through the press corps and The Hague, seat of everything political.
The news broke on Monday eve, when gossip news television programme RTL Boulevard said that De Vries had been shown the door by his wife. He had moved into quarters in a military barracks in The Hague, ostensibly for security reasons.
A rowdy discussion started on Twitter immediately after RTL Boulevard broke the news. Many journalists, political commentators, former and current spin doctors and legions of supporters from political parties joined the fray. As expected during an election campaign, supporters of other parties pounced while the Christian Democrats either remained silent or questioned why the private affairs of a politican were suddenly considered ‘news’.
They had a point. Unlike in the United States or Britain, and indeed many other countries, the private lives of politicans have remained, well, private. nutil Tuesday, the Dutch press prided itself on holding back from reporting on personal scandals. As long as the matter did not interfere with an official’s ability to carry out his or her job, the rule seemed to be: ‘Whatever happens in The Hague, stays in The Hague’.
But the reality is that all that has now changed, and not everybody likes it. Journalists attacked journalists for being unprofessional and breaking moral codes, while current and former spin doctors came out of the woodwork to defend their peer.
Kay van der Linde, the former campaign leader of the assassinated politician Pim Fortuyn, was particularly livid. He accused reporting journalists of being on a crusade to damage De Vries. Van der Linde provoked outrage when he threatened to reveal the names of journalists who he claims are also engaged in extramarital affairs.
Active politicians were appalled by the widely reported revelations, perhaps because they fear that Pandora’s Box has been opened, putting their own antics under the limelight from now on. Journalists reporting on the matter defended themselves by pointing out that De Vries is a member of the Christian Democrats, a party that views the happily married family as the cornerstone of society. De Vries is admittedly not abiding by that high moral standard.
Another reason to report on this, journalists say, is because De Vries is still one of the campaign masterminds of the Christian Democrats. He engineered the surprising comeback of CDA-leader Balkenende during the election campaign of 2006, when the CDA erased many of the losses it had been attributed in polls. De Vries is now stepping back from the political scene, confronting the CDA with a problem.
It was also De Vries who during the 2006 campaign decided to publicly paint the then-leader of the Social Democrats (PvdA) as a liar. That was a first: never before had a party launched such a personal attack on another party’s leader. From then on, PvdA-supporters painted De Vries as a dark wizard who concocts all kinds of devilish plots to aid his master, Jan Peter Balkenende. It was no surprise that PvdA-supporters on Twitter were thrilled by the allegations of promiscuity, and fell into a frenzied online celebration when De Vries on Tuesday officially admitted the affair.
Personal attacks were the first novelty De Vries brought to the Dutch political scene. It seems that the campaign mastermind has fallen on his own sword, and in so doing has introduced a second novelty: the media have tasted blood, also in a commercial sense, and they are likely to go out hunting for the next headline.
I doubt that there will be much love lost among his colleagues in Parliament when De Vries finally exits the political scene.
Kaj Leers is a financial journalist and part-time political commentator