The Case for Reconfirming Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke

Thanks for saving the world from a second Great Depression, Ben Bernanke! Now, what have you done for us lately?

It's actually a reasonable question. Bernanke was TIME's Person of the Year 2009, and at the time we urged Congress to put politics aside and confirm him to a second term as Federal Reserve chairman. Much of the opposition that's been building lately to Bernanke's confirmation consists of Republicans who want to obstruct anything President Obama wants and Democrats who want to obstruct anything Wall Street wants. But while Bernanke performed brilliantly during the worst financial panic in 75 years, it's fair to ask why he isn't doing more now to fight unemployment (the left's chief complaint) or inflation (the right's chief complaint).

(See photos of Ben Bernanke.)

I spent nearly six hours with Bernanke for TIME's Person of the Year story, and I asked versions of the "Now what?" question a dozen times. Bernanke always left wiggle room, but he made it clear he basically intends to stay the course. After pouring unprecedented money into the financial system to try to revive the economy, he has no plans for additional monetary stimulus because he doubts it would create many jobs. He also made it clear that he's in no hurry to start pulling money out of the economy to try to fight inflation, because he doesn't see any signs of inflation on the horizon.

(See the Person of the Year cover story on Bernanke.)

I'll get back to his case for standing pat. But there are several other criticisms of Bernanke, most of them unfair:

-- He's a Wall Street Guy: This is just wrong. Bernanke is a Main Street guy, a middle-class kid from small-town Dillon, S.C., whose father actually owned a pharmacy on Main Street. He has never worked on Wall Street. He's an academic who studied the Depression and learned how financial panic can lead to economic calamity. He bailed out bankers not to reward their bad behavior but to prevent that bad behavior from crippling the global economy. It's not his fault the markets like him.

-- He Blew It Before the Crisis: This is true. Bernanke had no idea the financial system was in danger, and some of his comments look painfully ridiculous in retrospect. That said, he had a lot of company on the Clueless Express, and it's not clear how much his cluelessness drove the crisis. Bernanke makes a persuasive case that the remarkably loose monetary policies he supported under his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, did not create the housing bubble; it's amusing to see longtime Greenspan fanboys like John McCain trashing Bernanke for insufficient foresight. And while the Fed should have provided stronger oversight, Bernanke is a much more aggressive regulator than Greenspan ever was; in any case, the Fed was never responsible for AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers or most of the other firms that blew up the financial system.

(Watch a video about why TIME chose Ben Bernanke as Person of the Year 2009.)

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