Another good David Carr/”Carpetpagger” rant in the N.Y. Times about some especially irksome social ticks and tendencies in the Oscar game. I’ll just address the complaint about industry journo-bloggers flogging the “Pet Cause” (David Poland on Munich, Roger Ebert on Crash ). I’ve jumped into this swimming pool from time to time (my anti-Peter Jackson and Chicago rants), and I see Carr’s point that “if you harp relentlessly on an agenda, many people will soon wish that you and your pet cause would go for a long walk.” But I’m not at all sorry for pushing The Fog of War two years ago and running that “Message to the Academy” statement in early ’01 that pleaded with voters to hand Steven Soderbergh the Best Director Oscar for Traffic and not for Erin Brockovich, which might have helped avoid a split vote in some small way. And if I’m really honest I have to confess to a twinge of pride over having been one of those voices who helped keep Munich from being serious considered as a Best Picture winner…for being one of those who stood up and fired back against that pompous and preemptive Best Picture campaign that began with a slightly smug-looking Spielberg on the cover of Time alongside the words “secret genius.” Nothing has given me more journalistic satisfaction all year than to be one of the guys who helped throw a cable around the legs of that film and see it teeter and fall and crash into the ground like one of those big “walkers” in The Empire Strikes Back.