Others attempted to seize the issue from him, of course. Rival talk show hosts, stunned by his sudden ascendancy, claimed the Colonial Union topic for their own but could not match his head start; even the (formerly) more influential show hosts looked like also-rans on the subject. Eventually, all but the most oblivious of them ceded supremacy on the topic to him and focused on other subjects. Politicians would try to change the subject; Birnbaum would either get them on the show to serve his purposes or harangue them when they wouldn’t set foot into his studio.

Either way the subject was his, and he milked it for all it was worth, carefully tweaking his message for statesmanlike effect. No, of course the Colonial Union should not be excused for keeping us in the dark, he would say, but we have to understand the context in which that decision was made. No, we should never be subjugated to the Colonial Union or be just another colony in their union, he’d say other times, but there were distinct advantages in an alliance of equal partners. Of course we should consider the Conclave’s positions and see what advantages talking to it holds for us, he’d say still other times, but should we also forget we are human? To whom, at the end of the day, do we truly owe our allegiance, if not our own species?

Every now and again, Louisa Smart would ask him if he truly believed the things he was saying to his new, widely expanded audience. Birnbaum would refer her to his original answer to the question. Eventually Smart stopped asking.

The new monthlies came in. Live audience of the show was up 2,500 percent. Archived show up a similar number. Forty million downloads of the PDA ’gram. Birnbaum called his agent and told her to renegotiate his latest contract with SilverDelta. She did, despite the fact it had been negotiated less than two years earlier. Walter Kring might have been a six-foot-ten-inch alpha male right through to his bones, but he was strangely terrified of Monica Blaustein, persistent Jewish grandmother from New York, five feet tall in her flats. He could also read a ratings sheet and knew a gold mine when he saw it.

Birnbaum’s life became the show and sleeping. His thing on the side, miffed at the inattention, dropped him. His relationship with Judith, his third wife, the smart one, the one who had maneuvered him out of the prenup, became commensurately better in nearly all respects. His son Ben’s soccer team actually won a soccer game. Birnbaum didn’t feel he could really take credit for that last one.

“This isn’t going to last,” Smart pointed out to him two months into the ride.

“What is it with you?” Birnbaum asked her. “You’re a downer.”