Almost the majority of Wall Street refused the bailout money. Paulson almost force them. The bailout money eventually made a profit ($15B). One could argue that the return rate was low (0.6% annualized), but still, this is far different from what most people have believed till this day: i.e., US gov just gave taxpayer's money away to the banks to cover their ass.
Paulson also almost managed to save Lehman Brothers until British Gov said no to Barclay's role in the plan. (Wall Street banks would acquire LB's "good assets" while Barclay would buy their toxic ones as its gateway to become a more influential player in US market.). But even Lehman didn't reach out to Pualson to get itself saved. It's the other way around: Paulson was trying many ways to save Lehman because he knew when Lehman went down, market would panic and then even those banks in good shape would be affected.
