Toward the end of Wednesday night’s “Sidecar Conversation Series” on the love/hate relationship between Hollywood and D.C. — a discussion which was, at turns, self-congratulatory and hyper critical — moderator Ron Brownstein asked the entertainment-savvy panelists to name the defining political flick.

Our own Neda Semnani originally blurted out “The Candidate,” but then amended her choice to tout “Inherit the Wind”:

“Chasing the Hill” creator and NBC alumnus Brent Roske kept it in the family, tossing his support behind “The West Wing”:

Bono proxy Michael Elliott made a case for Robert Altman’s hippie, trippy “Nashville”:

“House of Cards” Executive Producer Beau Willimon went big, giving Orson Welles mad props for “Citizen Kane”:

Brownstein, meanwhile, sang the praises of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”:

While many of the aforementioned efforts attempt to expose the underbelly of politics via one trope or another, we would argue that the seminal Tinsel Town-Washington tryst never sizzled across the silver screen. No, the most honest moment between our seedy universes played out, as is so often the case on Capitol Hill, right under everyone’s noses:

As for the heated debate about the entertainment industry’s continuously dismissive treatment of female reporters, we’ll let “Saturday Night Live” have the last word on that: