Very few people have a nasty word to say about Burnham, beyond the odd mean remark about him resembling a ventriloquist's dummy with a Lego man haircut.
So, instead of fixing the cellphone culprit with an evil-eye stare or making a mean remark about quality-of-life crimes, this Mr. Giuliani smiled, chortled amiably and told a long anecdote about the film "Dr. Strangelove".
Once they make a mean remark, simply smile.
"Disappointment makes us mean," remarks one of the women.
Instead, we are privy to something realistically ugly: a hellscape of gossip, dominated by old men making mean remarks about the miscarriages of potential queens.
In the subway stations, people have been yelling smart remarks, mean remarks, saying there are other routines he should work into his act if he wants to really be Jacko.
Yet surely it got to where it is - half a million unique visitors a month - after it was name checked on the Gossip Girl site, precisely because of those hilariously mean remarks.
Angry at the government's economic philosophy, at an austerity budget filled with measures cutting jobs and services, at the reorganization of the National Health Service, at recent suggestions by Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, that he would like to limit abortion rights, the Twitter-using public unleashed a torrent of witty, mean remarks.
"You got red-faced, roast beef, true-grit Tories who can't stand the fact that this little outsider is there in charge," said a former member of Parliament, alluding to Mr. Bercow's height (5-foot-6 ½) and non-Etonian background, and speaking on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be associated with mean remarks.
When he hosted the MTV Video Music Awards in September, Mr. Brand made mean remarks about the clean-cut band the Jonas Brothers, speculated about Bristol Palin's boyfriend's future sex life and referred to President Bush as a "retarded cowboy," which did not go down well with everyone.
Some on the right have seized on the idea that it's racist to notice anyone's race — particularly when it would mean remarking on everyone in a room being white (as, incidentally, everyone taking part in "This Week's" roundtable was).
