They have started appearing on the streets of Washington, the gaily painted, smaller-than-life-sized effigies of elephants and donkeys collectively known as “Party Animals” that are the latest incarnations of the kind of public art pioneered by Chicago’s cows three years ago. Actually, Zürich first came up with the idea (if it is not to dignify such a gesture to call it an idea) but, as in so many other cases, Americans have taken the lead in marketing a European concept. Since then, for instance, there have been pigs in Cincinnati and Seattle, horses in Lexington, Kentucky, buffalo in Buffalo, moose in Toronto, and stylized beagles—or “Snoopies”—in St. Paul, which is the birthplace of Charles Schultz, creator of the cartoon strip “Peanuts”—to name just a few examples of that good old American can-do spirit.

But while such kitsch was merely annoying in the City of Big Shoulders and elsewhere, there is something epoch-making about its arrival in the seat of government. One senses a sort of quasi-official benediction being pronounced upon the more general Disney-fication of the culture, a final assimilation of public discourse to mere boosterism and glad-handing. Washington’s first “Party Animals” were unveiled by the First Lady, Laura Bush, and Mayor Anthony Williams. As Jacqueline Trescott wrote in The Washington Post, “When they lifted off the bright red covering, they both burst into laughter. And that’s the point: to show Washington’s secret whimsical side, to showcase its artists and to give residents and tourists the same