Oh, Mister Mayor!

Things got a little awkward last night, when Mayor Tom Menino spoke at the big Women's Dinner Party, an annual "elegant attire fundraiser" for Fenway Health, attended by "more than 1,200 lesbian, transgender and bisexual women and their friends and supporters."

According to several attendees, Menino -- a longtime, much-beloved supporter of the cause -- used a good portion of his time to praise the event's co-chair, Terri Murray. Menino told the audience that Murray has been a terrific leader in the state senate, and that the community needs to work very hard to help the event's co-chair win her tough re-election challenge this year.

He went "on and on" about it, my spies tell me, with nobody daring to point out to him that the event co-chair is not that Terri Murray.

Poor Theresa Murray, a former federal agent and current Regional Catastrophic Planner at the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency, explained to the audience afterward that she is not in fact State Senate President Therese Murray, and is not running for state senate.