In 2004, Slate said they "publicly doubted and privately derided Rasmussen" polls because of the methodology.

There wasn't a single scrap of hard intelligence to support his suspicion, and he knew his KGB "colleagues" privately derided it as no more than was to be expected from a pro-Western economic apologist like himself.

The e-mail messages also showed analysts, including Henry Blodget, who followed Internet stocks for Merrill, privately deriding companies whose shares they were recommending to the public.

Mr. Spitzer shot to center stage in April when he released e-mail messages written by Merrill Lynch analysts that appeared to show them privately deriding stocks they were recommending to clients.

Many of the statute's liberal supporters do not like it, but seeing it as the only alternative to a damaging amendment battle, they privately deride as naive fellow liberals who attack it.

The son has become what the father used to privately deride as an "extra-chromosome" conservative.

For reasons best known to himself, George W Bush privately derided environmentalists as "green, green lima beans".

Eliot Spitzer, the New York State attorney general, extracted huge settlements from investment houses whose securities analysts printed upbeat reports on companies they covered, even while privately deriding their financial prospects to colleagues.

Justice Department officials, while privately deriding the claim, have refused to comment publicly, citing the sensitivity of the case.

Arts groups in particular have maintained a disdainful silence while their members privately deride Mr. Chapin for equivocating and clearing his dissent with City Hall.