The Senate gave Ben Bernanke a second four-year term as the head of the Federal Reserve on Thursday, despite sharp attacks on his role in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.
After a bitter debate that hit global stock markets, the US Senate finally voted 70-30 to approve Bernanke. This was the weakest endorsement ever extended to a chairman in the central bank's 96-year history.
In several hours of debate, Bernanke's detractors said that the Fed had abetted, then ignored, the housing and credit bubbles and allowed banks to keep dangerously low capital reserves and to make reckless lending decisions that ruined consumers. Some even blamed Bernanke for the falling dollar and questioned his commitment to free enterprise
His supporters said the 56-year old central banker had rescued the world's richest economy back from the brink, though many agreed that he had not done enough to prevent the crisis.
The confirmation is seen as a victory for President Barack Obama, who had called Bernanke an architect of the recovery.
A Republican economist and an authority on the Great Depression, Bernanke rejoined the Fed, as chairman, in 2006.
