be a safe choice, no sarah palin this time. any chance that goes safe is an overreaction. the bland leading the bland. i m chuck todd. chris matthews is off this week. welcome to the show. with us today, dan rather, gloria borger, kathleen parker and david ignatius. first up, the tragedy in denver came at the end of a week that was notable for how small and petty the campaign was getting and only seemed to highlight the smallness. dan, look, you have been through a lot of these rodeos. looking back at the last week of politics, it was awful. and then friday happens and all the campaigns started acting responsibly again. but that won t last long. this does perspective, this puts this into perspective. it signals to us once again just how bland and mostly irrelevant the campaign rhetoric has been. yes, the initial responses were on the news, that won t last very long. gloria, look, these are moments and sometimes they re outside and they have a long lasting impact. we think