Bernanke well-received.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Doesn't anyone distrust this guy? Republicans and Democrats in Congress rushed to support President Bush's nomination of Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Editorials in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, publications that can't agree on the time of day, sang harmonious praises. The financial markets bounced convincingly upward. President Bush, judging from the universal reaction, has found a replacement for the irreplaceable Alan Greenspan, who has guided the Fed for 18 years and will retire in January.

The support for Bernanke stems in part from relief that Bush did not choose a crony or an ideologue. Bernanke, a former Princeton professor and Federal Reserve governor, is perceived as being in the Greenspan mold, and therefore likely to bring about a reassuringly smooth transition in leadership. But Bernanke may face economic challenges that did not arise during Greenspan's tenure.

Greenspan is admired for having kept inflation under control. Yet it was Paul Volcker, Greenspan's predecessor at the Fed, who actually tamed the inflation monster of the 1970s. The president who nominated Volcker, Jimmy Carter, lost the election of 1980. Greenspan did not arrive on the scene until 1987, near the end of Ronald Reagan's two terms as president - and by then the painful work of reining in rising prices had been done.

Greenspan's real achievements include managing a series of financial crises - including the 1987 stock market panic, financial meltdowns in Asia and Russia, corporate accounting scandals, the bursting of the Internet stock bubble, the implosion of a massive hedge fund, and the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Any of these could have steered the U.S. economy into a deep recession. Instead, downturns have been few and mild, allowing Greenspan to acquire an aura of oracular omniscience.

Yet by their nature, financial crises are unpredictable. Unforeseen challenges - An avian flu epidemic? More natural disasters? A change of government in Saudi Arabia? - will require responses from Bernanke for which Greenspan will leave no blueprint. Even the known dangers are formidable in their size and complexity, such as fears of a housing bubble, rising energy prices, 12-digit fiscal and trade deficits, and, yes, an inflation rate that is creeping toward 5 percent.

Bernanke, as chairman of the White House Council on Economic Advisers, can be presumed to be a supporter of President Bush's economic policies. But he hasn't said much about such issues as tax cuts or Social Security reform. The Senate will have to elicit his views on these and other subjects. The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board should project an air of calm competence. Bernanke has passed this first test, judging from the reaction, and may thereby have demonstrated the most essential qualification for the job. But many blanks remain to be filled in, and until that happens, Americans would be well-advised to withhold judgment.