Ben Bernanke’s nomination as fed chairman is not unexpected — his name had been circulating for the last few weeks. The New York Times offered reluctant praise in an editorial earlier this month:

Mr. Bernanke is deeply conservative, economists say, but respected for independent thinking and not inclined to wear that conservatism on his sleeve.

So surely they’ll endorse Bernanke in tomorrow’s editorials? And Daniel Gross regarded Bernanke as an enigmatic favorite in a nomination preview:

Bernanke doesn’t have much of a public record when it comes to deficits, and he’s a latecomer to the Bush White House.

The Times also featured Bernanke in June. The article isn’t freely available on the Times website (blasted Times Select!), but bloggers have kept it alive. Bernanke has called for “inflation targeting,” meaning the Fed would publicly declare what inflation level it is targeting with interest rate changes.