Bernanke Is Back-y

The kid stays in the picture:

President Barack Obama will announce Tuesday that he is nominating Ben Bernanke for a second four-year term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said.

Mr. Emanuel said Mr. Obama will make the announcement from Martha's Vineyard Tuesday. He said the president credits Mr. Bernanke for "pulling the economy back from the brink of depression."

Mr. Bernanke's term as Fed chairman expires in January. His renomination requires Senate confirmation.

Dean Baker said at Netroots Nation that he supported Bernanke's re-confirmation because "otherwise, Larry Summers would become the chair, and that would be awful."

Not exactly praiseworthy. But probably where we're at.

I'd say that, as a condition of Bernanke's re-appointment, we need a full audit of the Fed so we can figure out where the trillions of dollars that they used to staunch the bleeding in the financial markets has gone. But Senators may disagree with me.