In her third appearance on “Meet the Press” in three months, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was asked about weighty questions of state, such as the crisis with Russia over the Ukraine, but made the most waves by revealing her pick for the Oscars tonight.

It was “House of Cards,” which isn’t on the list of best film nominees for an Academy Award because it’s a web-only TV series. The mayor acknowledged that fact while addressing the enthusiasm by other panelists for Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave.”

“It’s a powerful movie,” the mayor conceded of the slave epic, “but I would vote for ‘House of Cards.’ They need to find a way to slide that in.”

Almost immediately, there was Internet chatter that the mayor had made a “gaffe,” though we think she was just expressing her preference for a locally-made product.

Partly filmed in Baltimore, “Cards” is the black comedy-thriller of a conniving Southern Democratic congressman (Kevin Spacey) who exacts very creative revenge on those who stand in his way of becoming president. Robin Wright plays his equally ambitious and amoral wife.

On the matter of Russia’s military aggression in Crimea and threat to the sovereignty of Ukraine, Rawlings-Blake said the American people are “exhausted” by foreign wars and praised President Obama for pursuing diplomacy.

“You take one step, you take another step, and then you’re going to find yourself in a place you have to put up or shut up,” she said. “And we want a president that’s going to look at diplomacy and look at other options and not get us into, to write a check that our you-know-what doesn’t want to cash.”

Come to Baltimore

A final issue hashed over was the Arizona legislature’s attempt to allow business owners to deny service to gay and lesbian customers on religious grounds.

Rawlings-Blake responded to Gov. Jan Brewer’s veto of the legislation by inviting Arizona’s LGBT community to Baltimore, saying that while the weather might not be as good, “there’s no [culture] war going on in Baltimore.”

Since 2011, mayor has repeatedly pledged to attract 10,000 new families to Baltimore in the next 10 years.