Yes, the SEC slapped a shorting ban on 19 financial stocks, only one of which--Deutsche Bank--was even on the SHO list. No naked shorting at all. That was one of Chris Cox's very worst moments; he sounded like a sleazy penny stock CEO.
The FACT was that the financial companies were in enormous trouble. Trouble of their own making. They deserved to be shorted into the ground. That's what shorting's FOR: to detect and correct mispricings.
And even Cox admitted months later that his shorting ban had only made a bad situation worse.