So there was this rumor going around last week that somebody somewhere had a videotape of Michelle Obama, the wife of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, saying all sorts of terrible things about white people—but apparently whoever owns that tape is keeping it on a shelf right next to the one of Tommy Hilfiger on the Oprah Winfrey show... that is to say, it's a BS rumor from a BS source.

Or, rather, the source ultimately turns out not to be BS, just pure fiction. National Review blogger Jim Geraghty was one of the first to suggest that this rumor matches a key plot point in The Power Broker, a political thriller published two years ago. Except that in the novel, it's the candidate, an African-American U.S. Senator with close ties to a controversial minister, who's caught making the remarks. (Talking Points Memo confirms the details.) "Either author Stephen Frey is clairvoyant, writing this book in 2006," Geraghty observes. "Or this is one of the all time amazing coincidences. Or whoever started this rumor got the idea from a novel." I know which one I'm going with.