Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben S. Bernanke confirmed for New Term by the Senate.

The Senate gave Ben S. Bernanke a second four-year term as the head of the Federal Reserve on Thursday after critics excoriated the central bank’s conduct in the years leading up to the financial crisis. The 70-to-30 vote was the weakest endorsement ever extended to a chairman in the Fed’s 96-year history.

The confirmation was a victory for President Obama, who had called Mr. Bernanke an architect of the recovery. Bernanke was credited by many people for preventing the crisis from being worse while some fault him for endorsing a long period of low rates in the early 2000s and for playing down risks from the housing bubble.

Mr. Bernanke, 56, was a member of the Fed’s board for part of that period, from 2002 to 2005, when President George W. Bush named him to lead his Council of Economic Advisers. He rejoined the Fed, as chairman, in 2006, and Mr. Obama renominated him last year. Mr. Bernanke is a Republican economist and an authority on the Depression.