While everyone else at the National Review Online Web site was eulogizing magazine founder William F. Buckley Jr. on Thursday, New Mexican Paul J. Gessing was calling Gov. Bill Richardson's universal health-care crusade a "disaster."

"The governor's big-government experiment failed on the launch pad," said the article's subtitle, and Gessing, president of the Rio Grande Foundation,  told the magazine's conservative readers that Richardson's health-care proposals "have foundered, at least to this point, on fiscal and economic reality."

Gessing, a frequent contributor to NRO and Richardson critic who occasionally writes op-ed pieces for the Albuquerque Journal, said Richardson's plan never got off the ground in the Legislature because of "genuine policy disagreements" as well as a widely held perception that the governor is a "lame duck."

But the unkindest cut of all was this:

"Ironically, while Richardson's campaign for the White House was based in large part on his credentials as a diplomat, he exhibited anything but diplomatic skill in his attempt at health-care reform in New Mexico," Gessing wrote.

According to this morning's Albuquerque Journal, it appears Richardson has backed away from using a special legislative session as a bludgeon and a threat to get his reforms passed, and has gotten back in touch with his Inner Diplomat.

The governor and Senate leaders met for about an hour and a half at the Capitol on Thursday and agreed to create a bipartisan, executive-legislative group to discuss what to reform and make sure everyone agrees to the changes before a special session some time this summer, the Journal reported.

"We all want a productive special session that results in affordable access to health care," a far less bellicose-sounding Richardson said in a news release. 

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