The thing that I find shocking is that anybody actually voted for the bailout. Here's why:
1) Conservatives hate it; it rewards businesses for failure
2) Liberals hate it; it puts taxpayer money straight into the pockets of private industry for no return
3) George W. Bush supports it, so the people who are convinced that he is an imbecile who can do nothing right (probably the majority of the US) are put off.

What I find surprising is that the US isn't taking a page out of Sweden's book; Sweden had a massive banking crisis about 15 years ago that was quite similar to what the US was going through now. Their solution? Instead of just handing money to the banks and basically making taxpayers swallow the problem, the government instead invested a large amount of money in the banks, bought up a lot of shares. This influx of cash allowed banks to get themselves back on their feet and eventually gave the government a sizable return. The government needs to stop taking the "hey, let's throw money at the problem and hopefully make it better" approach and actually use their brains. Oh wait, right, it's congress, they're all retards anyway.