BY the decision 70-30 the U.S. Senate re-elected Ben nernanke for the second 4-year term as the governor of the Federal Reserve System. You can read it for example here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/business/economy/29fed.html?ref=business

from NYT: “The 70-to-30 vote was the weakest endorsement ever extended to a chairman in the Fed’s 96-year history.”

and here is Alan S. Blinder’s friendly opinion about this fact:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/opinion/28blinder.html?sudsredirect=true

To balance this news, here’s also a campaign started by Mike Shedlock (alias “Mish”) to audit the Fed.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/05/speak-out-audit-fed-then-end-it.html

Re-election of Bernanke is somehow similar to re-appointment of Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England. He had his slip withNorthern Rock, a commercial bank having problems already in 2007. A brief story from September 2007 here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2816231/Northern-Rock-made-Mervyn-King-panic.html

Perhaps, in these difficult to manage economic times, it’s good to give second chances.