Problems in Beantown
Saha Talcott tells the tale in the Boston Globe:

It's an etiquette problem fit to stump even Emily Post.

When the country music superstars the Dixie Chicks performed at FleetCenter two weeks ago, the offices of City Councilors Chuck Turner and Felix Arroyo presented the threesome with a signed and stamped certificate of congratulations for speaking out in the spring against the war in Iraq. Six days later, the rest of the council nixed the honors.

Now, the two city councilors have to figure out how to take back the presumptuously awarded honor.

''It's a huge embarrassment,'' said Laurie Leyshon, a Boston peace activist who asked Turner and Arroyo to sponsor the resolution. ''It's like, who's going to go after them and take it away? It's awful.''

How, pray tell, did this happen?

Amid the hubbub, Leyshon appeared at the FleetCenter carrying the cream-colored certificate with its official gold seal. Inside a heavyweight folder, tied at each corner with small bits of ribbon, the certificate lauded the Dixie Chicks for ''their courage in speaking truthfully regarding their view on the US invasion of Iraq.''

Leyshon had picked it up a half-hour before from Turner's office. More than a month earlier, she and other activists at United for Justice with Peace had asked Turner and Arroyo, who are known for their antiwar activism, to sponsor the congratulatory resolution.

Turner and Arroyo had been so confident that Boston would embrace the Dixie Chicks proclamation that Turner asked his staff to print the certificate before the official council vote.
...
A week after the concert, the rest of Boston's city councilors made quick work of the resolution.

''Here we are in a fiscal crisis, putting the finishing touches on the city's budget, and they wanted to talk about the Dixie Chicks,'' said council president Michael Flaherty, who did not allow the panel to vote on the resolution because it did not directly relate to city business.

It's a tough job being a wingnut.