He noted tartly that it was the day the Council voted to raise members' salaries.

He tartly noted the open differences of opinion inside the administration and he warned that it was dangerous for the United States to flout world opinion.

Told about Governor Romney's position on the treatment of terrorism suspects, Mr. McCain noted tartly, "He doesn't have a vote."

The single currency, he notes tartly, was supposed to do the opposite: make economies like Greece, Italy and Spain more like Germany.

(Elsewhere, Hitchens notes tartly that if any one of the major faiths is true, then the others must be false in important respects - an obvious point often forgotten in the warm haze of ecumenism.)

"Sounds really thrilling," she noted tartly.

Mr. Clinton mourned "a country encrusted with cynicism" and noted tartly that in FDR's time, cynicism was "a luxury no one could afford."

"They realized long ago," the commission tartly notes, "that it is possible to graduate from high school in this country and still be functionally illiterate."

One House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted tartly that the Senate was in "spin mode over there to calm everyone down."

Still, one woman, a shareholder and former I.B.M. worker, noted tartly that the share price declined a bit further since Mr. Gerstner came aboard.