From the Ho-Ho-Kus Cogitator, the personal newsletter of Commonweal Institute advisor Harvey Gotliffe:
Politicians and political appointees are born with the ability to rearrange the truth to give the impression that they are for this and against that, to enable them to convince their consituents that they are working for the common man -- the same common man that has 46 million of his number without any health insurance coverage. [...]One political party promulgates the illustration of a jackass, while the other party visually depicts a bloated and lumbering mammal to symbolize their party's image. The donkey symbol for the Democrats and the elephant for the Republicans are both credited to political cartoonist Thomas Nast, who drew them for Harper's Weekly in the 1870s. The donkey's origin was first attributed to Andrew Jackson when he ran for president in 1828 and his opponents labeled him a "jackass" for his populist views and his slogan, "Let the people rule." He used the donkey to his advantage by putting it on his campaign posters.
In 1874, Nast's cartoon showed a deceitful donkey attacking an ineffective elephant, a symbol for Republican voters who were abandoning President Ulysses Simpson Grant. Other political cartoonists picked up on the symbols, and a two-animal menagerie was born.
Today the elephant wants to forget about the election and the donkey is braying loudly in celebration. There's hope that over the next two years, we won't be led by jackasses and by those who forget why they were elected.