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They likened him to a traitor. They hinted darkly that he might suffer violence because of his actions in office. They said they wanted him fired.

But when Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke was invited to respond to the Republican presidential candidates who have made him a whipping boy, he turned the other bearded cheek.

“You haven’t had a very good time in all the Republican presidential debates,” Greg Robb of MarketWatch told the slight and scholarly chairman at Wednesday afternoon’s news conference at the Federal Reserve.