Nobel Prize winner Peter Diamond withdrew as a nominee for one of the seven Federal Reserve governors, leaving the White House to fill two vacancies in the midst of a struggling economy. The MIT economics professor was repeatedly criticized by a top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, Richard Shelby, for bailing out banks and not having an "appropriate background." A similar event occurred in 2008, when a Democratically-controlled Senate blocked President Bush's nominee. In a New York Times op-ed entitled "When a Nobel Prize Isn't Enough," Diamond lamented that his opponents need to realize the unemployment analysis is essential to policy and "we should all worry about how distorted the confirmation process has become."