The comments, rare for Chinese officials, reflect growing frustration in Beijing with the Bush administration.

"He should be ashamed of himself," sniffed Yosuke Ozawa, secretary to a senior governing party politician, in a rare public comment.

Beatryx ventured one of her rare technical comments: "Wouldn't it have done something, if it meant to?"

It was surely no coincidence, therefore, that Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, made a rare comment about the dollar yesterday.

Patrick Purcell, the paper's publisher, let out one of his rare public comments with, "Yes, we're doing well."

"It's good, getting out of the city," he said, making one of his rare comments.

The pen and watercolor of a Mexican lying under a sombrero beside a tree in which hangs a crucified figure is a rare social comment.

But last fall, in a rare public comment on the case, Mr. Spota offered intriguing opinions.

He especially liked that the surge followed his rare public comments about the team's poor play.

In one of his rare written comments on this process he wrote: 'Enquiring within Who is the seer?