George Selgin writes,

In contrast to the Fed’s actions in August 2007, its subsequent turn to sterilized lending had it, not buying, but selling Treasury securities, with the aim of preventing its emergency lending from resulting in any overall increase in the supply of bank reserves. Financial conditions were thus “eased,” not generally, but for particular institutions and their creditors. For the rest, credit was actually tightened. Because it serves to redistribute credit rather than to alter its overall availability, sterilized lending is properly regarded, as Marvin Goodfriend insists, as an exercise in fiscal policy rather than one in monetary policy in the strict sense of the term. The principle beneficiaries of this fiscal policy were the creditors of the aided institutions, while the losers were those prospective borrowers who were denied credit because the Fed had directed the reserves that might have supported lending to them elsewhere.

The bailouts were done in the name of saving the economy. What Selgin points out (read the whole thing) is that the Fed went out of its way to offset whatever stimulative effects the bailouts might otherwise have had on the economy.

Also, go back and read what I wrote on September 27, 2008.

What macroeconomic theory says that we run the risk of a Depression if we don’t have a bailout? Try to come up with an argument that is either already in a textbook or that you would put in a textbook. If macro is a genuine discipline, it has to consist of something more rigorous than “If Bernanke is worried, then so am I.”

I was angry then, and I am angry now. Leading pundits and economists will tell you that the bailouts were heroic. They have no use for any thinking that contradicts that narrative.