The race for Fed chairman is over, and it's . . . BEN BERNANKE in a landslide!

"Ben approached a financial system on the verge of collapse with calm and wisdom."

-- President Obama, announcing this morning at Oak Bluffs Elementary School on Martha's Vineyard that he is appointing Ben Bernanke to succeed himself when his term as chairman of the Federal Reserve expires in January

by Ken

That's right, Mr. President, our Ben approached the financial system in meltdown with the same calm and wisdom he had shown while it was preparing to go down the crapper. Say good night, Ben.

So President Obama has made it official: Chairman Ben gets another four-year term as Fed chairman, confirming our fearless forecast. We really went out on a limb with that one, since our Ben was competing in a cutthroat candidate field of one for the single vote being cast, the president's.

There is good news here -- and if there's anything I'm known for, it's finding the "good news" angle on any story. In this case the good news is that White House economic czar Larry Summers is reported to be interested in the job of Fed chairman. Sorry, Larry, the job's filled!

Or is this such good news? How much damage, after all, could Larry have caused at the Fed? Okay, I'm the one who always warns against putting questions like that in the form of a challenge -- you know, let's us just see how much damage he could cause! I mean, if you had played this game a few years ago, you could have asked, "How much trouble could our Larry get into as president of Harvard University?" Would your answer have come anywhere close to how much trouble he did get into?

The line of thinking, though, is that a Fed appointment would have gotten our Larry the hell out of the White House, or wherever the hell the office is from which he safeguards the interests of the nation's leading financiers. Of course, since the rest of the White House economic team was reportedly assembled according to our Larry's specifications, it's not as if that much change in policy would have been noticeable if he had been tapped for the Fed job, especially since all he needs is a cell phone to tell the president what to do from wherever he is.

Luckily, I do have a "backup good news angle" on this story: The president could have brought back Alan "Mumbles" Greenspan for an encore term as Fed chairman, with a shot at presiding over one last bubble before he leaves for that great economics council in the sky.

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