@JLeslie I’m not sure exactly which claims by the right you mean. The main distortion by the right, I think, has been making it look like the bailouts were all Obama’s idea, when they were actually launched by Bush.
There has been opposition to the bailouts from both sides though, typically to the effect that this created a “moral hazard”, in other words that the bailout protected the banks from reaping the consequences of their risky behavior, thus removing any incentive to behave responsibly. Many on the left framed it as “privatizing profits while socializing risk”.
In the end, I’m not sure what to believe. The TARP bailouts will end up costing very little, as it turns out. We’re still on the hook for a lot of the money we gave to AIG, but we actually made money on many other bailouts. Many argue that it was an artificial crisis, and that the consequences of not bailing out wouldn’t have been so dire. Others say the consequences would have been catastrophic. I have no idea who’s right.