Obama praises Bernanke's performance in crisis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has done a good job since the current financial crisis began but gave no hint whether he wants him to carry on when his term ends.

"He has done a fine job under very difficult circumstances," Obama said at a news conference in response to a reporter's question. Bernanke's term as U.S. central bank chief expires at the end of January.

There has been some press speculation whether top White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers wants to succeed Bernanke and it was evident that Obama knows he will eventually have to say whether he wants Bernanke to stay.

"I'm not going to make news about Ben Bernanke," Obama said, before offering praise for the job the Fed chief has done. "I would say all financial regulators didn't do everything that needed to be done to keep the crisis from happening." he added.

Obama implied that he didn't consider the Fed blameless in allowing reckless behavior by the financial sector to create conditions for the financial market meltdown that began in 2007.

"The Fed probably performed better than most other regulators prior to the crisis taking place, but I think they'd be the first to acknowledge that in dealing with systemic risk and anticipating systemic risk they didn't do everything that needed to be done," Obama said.

But, he added: "I think since the crisis has occurred Ben Bernanke has performed very well."

(Reporting by Glenn Somerville; Editing by Neil Stempleman)