Op1 presenter Jort Kelder has been reprimanded live on radio for portraying Pieter Omtzigt as autistic. “I hear you say this and I immediately think: that is quite a strong statement.”
Jort Kelder, a good friend of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte, is very skeptical when it comes to Pieter Omtzigt. Many people respect the politician, but there also seems to be an attack on him. The Op1 star discusses it in his radio program Dr. Kelder and Co, in which Dr. Edwina Hagen is a guest. She is an expert in character assassination.
character assassination
Is there a whispering campaign going on against Pieter Omtzigt? “Then what is a whisper campaign? Is that when a politician who has worked with him says: ‘You can’t work with him, he’s an autistic person, disastrous’? Is that a whispering campaign or is that simply true?” Jort wonders. “Yes… If it’s true, it’s just true, right?”
Edwina then reprimands Jort. “Well, look, now you say… I heard you say that earlier on the broadcast and I immediately thought: well, I thought it was quite a strong statement… ‘He is autistic.’”
Autist
Jort defends his accusation. “But talk to the people who work with him!”
Edwina: “Yes, yes, good. But yes, is it up to us to determine whether he is autistic?”
Jort: “I don’t know if it’s bad either.”
Edwina: “No, that too of course.”
Jort: “I think if someone steps up to the main stage to take power – perhaps not wanting to become Prime Minister himself, but with his movement – then we as voters are of course also entitled to ask whether he can handle that. . Because what we do not want, and Pieter Omtzigt himself will be the first to agree, is of course unstable governance.”
‘Is he suitable?’
Jort seriously wonders whether Omtzigt is suitable to succeed Mark Rutte. “A party that takes over for a while and then implodes again, that would be completely bad for the image of democracy. So yes, is he suitable for that? Can he pull that off? Well, we’ll see.”
Edwina believes that you should be careful about questioning Omtzigt’s mental well-being. “Character assassination is a form of bullying. It is a political strategic weapon with the aim of damaging the reputation of the other. (…) You see that a method is used here in which Pieter Omtzigt is in fact reduced to one characteristic.”
Rutte doctrine
Omtzigt also does it itself, says Jort. “They do it together all the time. Omtzigt calls it ‘the Rutte doctrine’. That is not necessarily meant in a friendly manner. As if all the government policies of the last twenty years can be blamed on Rutte. Isn’t this just part of politics?”
Edwina has doubts about that. “Well, when you talked about Omtzigt and yes: ‘Insiders have told me he is autistic…’ Then I think as a listener… I’m talking for a moment as a media consumer. I still think: hey, Jort is close to the fire, when he says that, it sows doubt in my mind. You are an opinion maker.”
‘I do what I want’
Jort doesn’t slow down. “I can do whatever I want. I think if you open a newspaper, that may or may not be true, but that all those sounds are legible, and certainly also on social media. And then maybe I’ll give it a face. (…) What do you think is a refined way of destroying someone?”
Edwina: “I think it’s OK to blame someone for having a psychiatric condition… That’s why I’m also referring to autism.”
Jort: “That’s not a condition, is it? That’s just you.”
Lonely
Still, that says something about Omtzigt, Edwina thinks. “That something is a bit off with someone. Whether someone is unstable, mentally unstable, I think so… It is very difficult to fight against that.”
Jort a little later: “Shall we support him a little? Because he might also be a bit lonely, right? Or am I not allowed to say that again?”