PanThe Los Angeles Review of BooksIt is not a bad book, precisely, but it is a myopic one, more concerned with salvaging the reputation of liberal technocrats like Chait himself than with advancing a model for future politics ... Chait makes his case in three broad, unofficial sections. The first of these sections is a single chapter on race, 'America’s Primal Sin,' and has no evident relationship to the argument that Barack Obama has been profoundly successful in office ... we find Chait wandering through what often feels like a Wikipedia summary of Middle East policy, landing solid blows on the Nobel Committee before issuing a mumbly paean to the 'widespread admiration for America’s system of government, prosperity, culture, and technological know-how' across the globe ... Nowhere does Chait attempt to engage, or even seriously represent the liberal or left cases against Barack Obama ... Throughout Audacity, we find Chait’s usual dismissal of left-wing politics, and the 'cynical, fashionable' types that aren’t satisfied with the wonders technocracy has wrought ... The dry, slogging, immediate-but-not-intimate voice that works so well in 800-word bursts of workaday wonkery is just unbearable when stretched over hundreds of pages.
