The move is unlikely to derail Mr. Bernanke's reappointment, but it could slow the confirmation process and give the Fed's critics additional opportunity to press their case.
Its forceful chair, the Labour MP Joan Walley, has, alas, retired; but many will hope for the reappointment to it of the two most environmentally minded MPs in the House, the Tory (but in effect, independent) Zac Goldsmith, and the only Green MP, Caroline Lucas, who is a symbol of what many people want from politics.
Mr. Cardinale claimed that she lacked a judicial temperament, but the Senate overwhelmingly approved her reappointment anyway, after it was disclosed that Mr. Cardinale had appeared before Judge Pressler as an unsuccessful litigant.
The management of the operating company, Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, as it is known, also pushed through the appointment of 17 board members, including the reappointment of its 71-year-old chairman, raising questions about the extent of the overhaul that the company promised after the nuclear disaster.
Before Mr Chernomyrdin's reappointment, the government said it would try to sell the firm again; as bait, it announced that Rosneft would get a stake in a big oil development on Sakhalin island, in the country's far east.
But Lawson was much more worried about Walters's later reappointment, and argued against it.
Each ICRA produces an annual report and its reappointment is considered every four years.
The White House argument goes like this: Washington traditionally chooses the head of the World Bank -- it just succeeded in gaining reappointment of James D. Wolfensohn -- and it is already accused of dominating major international institutions.
The sense that Bernanke may have prevented the economy tipping into depression may have been the reason for his reappointment and, if he pulls it off, he will be feted as the man who saved America.
