Oh there was an element of that in there as well. But bear in mind before Lehman they'd bailed out AIG I believe to the tune of 200billion USD? I think to keep effectively writing blank cheques to cover Wall Street's fuckups was becoming increasingly untenable. I think they were faced with three choices, keep bailing out publicly which was politically untenable, bailout on the quiet which would likely have ended up with Japanese style Zombie corporations or let Lehman fail and get the worst over with.