Of course, for today's concerned citizen there's no limit to the late breaking details, commentary, and analysis available immediately on almost any genuine news event, political revelation, celebrity incident, or media meta-happening imaginable -- the interpretations are infinite and instantaneous. And yet, when searching for a more complete understanding of the forces that shape our world everyday, I find it is sometimes wise to first seek some distance and perspective from the often hysterical echo chamber full of cable news pundits, talk radio shock jocks, and internet bloggers then consider the filmography of Burt Lancaster. For example, anyone seeking to make sense of the Bush administration's latest chicanery could do a lot worse than a screening of the 1957 classic The Sweet Smell of Success.

You can read the details here, but basically, last week it was reported that "seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same." In other words, with taxpayer money, Bush's people were paying Armstrong Williams, a popular conservative pundit for continued positive commentary on particular policy initiatives.

And now, suddenly the quirky, brilliant, jazzy, noirish Sweet Smell of Success comes rushing to mind. What, with its two battling slime ball protagonists, how could it not? Lancaster is J.J. Hunsecker, the most widely read and popular newspaper gossip columnist in New York City; Tony Curtis is Sidney Falco, a press agent who makes his living by getting his clients mentioned in Hunsecker's columns. Hunsecker works Falco to get his dirt, and on occasion to do his dirty work. Falco meanwhile, needs Hunsecker to print items or: no money. A symbiotic relationship indeed, but Falco's definitely the bitch more often than not. And when the drama begins, Falco's on the outs and in trouble with Hunsecker for having failed to breakup a relationship between Hunsecker's sister and a real cool jazz musician. From there it only gets more complicated, and of course, more wonderful. It's all fog and back alleys, cigarette girls and nightclubs. Add to that some killer dialogue and thrilling one-liners in a screenplay by Ernest Lehman and lefty playwright Clifford Odets, and you've got something that seems, at once, gritty and stylized, corny and insightful.

To be sure, you're not going to get very far by drawing direct parallels. Though it would be fun and interesting: "So let's say Bush is Falco, Williams is Hunsecker, the No Child Left Behind Act is Hunsecker's sister, and the American taxpayer is Falco's ugly but loyal secretary Sally..." Instead, think about the interplay of the film's two characters, the bargaining that underpins their relationship and the different ways in which they use other peoples' reputations, true and untrue, as currency in their own demented personal exchanges. Don't think too hard, though, it's an entertaining fast-moving film that's more wry than grave. Just watch the film because it's damn good and today, more compelling than ever. Besides, it beats watching the news, any day.