The Real Ben Westlund

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10444327.post-9379994756310719982008-07-18T06:27:00.000-07:002008-07-18T08:55:33.576-07:00The Real Ben Westlund<a href="http://blog.oregonlive.com/politics/2007/10/medium_Westlund.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://blog.oregonlive.com/politics/2007/10/medium_Westlund.jpg" border="0" /></a> Our friends at the Democrat Party of Oregon recently launched a website called <a href="http://allenalley.typepad.com/">The Real Allen Alley</a>. Funny thing about being the head of a public company, your life is an open book due to all of the public disclosure laws. So, they've found plenty of material...ok, they've found a little material...around which to build a website criticizing Alley for the stock performance of Pixelworks, the company he founded. Too bad the collective brain trust at the DPO wasn't put in charge of the company. It certainly would have flourished. I don't know that I'd particularly care for <a href="http://www.friendsofallenalley.com/">Alley</a> if he were running for the legislature or something. I mean I just don't know. It may be that he's another Portland RINO and part of the vaunted downtown business community. But, <a href="http://www.friendsofallenalley.com/">Alley</a> is a successful capitalist. I'll give him that. So, consider this a shout out to the doers out there. The actual players in the game of business who are constantly criticized by analysts, shareholders, reporters, and bloggers (excluding your's truly of course) who rest their considerable girth in an arm chair and throw darts from a comfortable distance. I just don't have a lot of freaking patience for people who have never run a business (like liberals) and then sit around and mock and chastise those who have. I'd prefer you just salute smartly and be on your merry way. This new DPO site does beg the question: Who is the real Ben Westlund? What public information is available about him? His businesses have all been private (we won't hold our breath for him to release the info so everybody can do an actual side-by-side analysis of the two). He is the son of obscenely rich Lake Oswego parents (oil money! Yikes!) who has lived a privileged, quixotic life. His business ventures mostly failed, which was fine since he hovered comfortably above a king-sized safety net of family money. He then went on to be a professional politico and has donned the uniform of whichever team happens to give him the best chance of winning in any given year. Perhaps this explains his affinity for baseball? <a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_e-VvZBIiyV0/SICf63sDfII/AAAAAAAAAuc/4bzZrvvAs78/s1600-h/ben-mugshot.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5224351401479732354" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_e-VvZBIiyV0/SICf63sDfII/AAAAAAAAAuc/4bzZrvvAs78/s200/ben-mugshot.jpg" border="0" /></a>Unfortunately for Ben, the only publicly available information on him is a criminal rap sheet and a legal binder that would make Lindsy Lohan blush. It's filled with all kinds of tidbits - some serious, some wistful, some just downright weird. But, in the end, it all adds up to the "real Ben Westlund." (NOTE: Ok that is not a REAL picture of Ben Westlund...just in case you were wondering. However it looks like Nick Nolte could play Westlund in a movie about his life?) The tidbits and background of Ben Westlund is really quite fascinating. If you like miniature train wrecks that is. We could almost start breaking out the Britney Spears photos for the Britney/Westlund morphs. We will start a little series on Ben Westlund. Watch for more to come... Yip YipI am Coyotehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09994485887123561822nwrepublican@aol.com