Despite Wall Street's rally last week, the global financial crisis must really be dire if the Federal Reserve chairman goes on national TV.

Or maybe it's just more of Barack Obama's strategy of going directly to the populace, instead of going through Congress, to push his agenda.

On top of the White House's smarmily friendly blog approach to informing the public, we've got Ben Bernanke in primetime. Scott Pelley interviewed him last night for 60 Minutes, which was not really a scoop at all but a strategic infomercial by the White House.

Designed to prop up the markets to continue the Street's rally? Yeah, probably. (The Wall Street Journal says this morning, ahead of the opening bell, "U.S. Stocks Set to Extend Rally: Stock futures pointed to a higher open, boosted by reassuring words from Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke and strong gains overseas."

Bernanke's performance — the White House's key talking point was his prediction that the recession will end "probably this year" — sparked Europe markets today.

Of course, this is all building on the momentum of Citigroup and other U.S. banks swearing last week that they're actually profitable so far this year. Could be just a house of cards that everybody's trying to erect as a foundation for a recovery.

You have to wonder whether the bank CEOs mouthed such sentiments under pressure from the Obama administration that if they didn't, nationalization moves would proceed apace. Or if they decided to take that tack themselves to forestall nationalization.

Or maybe the Obama Administration is simply trying to be all optimistic to take the edge off public anger — or at least just divert attention from — AIG's funneling taxpayer bailout money to Goldman and other big banks. (See Adam Nagourney's "Bracing for Bailout Backlash" in the New York Times.) After all, the details of the AIG sleaze about counterparties also broke over the weekend.

Anyway, CBS's print version of the Ben Bernanke Show is here. Among other coverage: the Wall Street Journal's "Bernanke Defends Recovery Efforts in Rare TV Interview".

Will Obama use a similar direct-to-video strategy — perhaps starring himself again — to blunt the grumbling among his fellow Democrats in Congress over his ambitious domestic-spending plans? See McClatchy's "Greatest threat to Obama spending plan? Moderate Dems," and keep an eye glued to the TV — as if you wouldn't anyway.