Just when you thought Gov. Bill Richardson, after dropping out of the Democratic presidential race, would go riding off into the New Mexico sunset, he's back again in the headlines over his endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama.

This time it's over an ABC News report that in that now-famous "tense" phone call Richardson made to Sen. Hillary Clinton before endorsing Obama, Clinton allegedly told him "Obama can't win."

We can only guess at the source of that report by George Stephanopolous, a former adviser to the Clintons who is now an ABC newsman.

"Sources with direct knowledge of the conversation" between Richardson and Clinton say she told the governor flatly "He cannot win, Bill, he cannot win," according to the ABC News blog "On the Radar."

Richardson's endorsement of Obama a couple of weeks ago continues to have legs, with dueling op-eds this week in the Washington Post by the governor and Clinton adviser James Carville, who has accused Richardson of being a "Judas" for turning on his former political benefactors.

And just yesterday, all the buzz was about a report that former President Bill Clinton himself launched into a red-faced tirade to a group of California Democratic superdelegates last weekend about Richardson's endorsement of Obama.

Bill Clinton told the astonished group that Richardson had assured him "five times" that he wouldn't endorse Obama -- a claim Richardson's people deny, according to this morning's Albuquerque Journal.

9:55am 4/2/08 -- Chill, Bill?: Calif. delegates say ex-president blasted Richardson just before his 'chill-out' speech.

Just before former President Bill Clinton urged fellow Democrats to "chill out" over the race between his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and Sen. Barack Obama, he unleashed a tirade against New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson at a private meeting with California superdelegates last weekend, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

"It was one of the worst political meetings I have ever attended," one superdelegate told the Chronicle's Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross.

According to those who attended the meeting, Clinton was his old charming self, making small talk with the 15 or so superdelegates who gathered in a room behind the convention stage, the Chronicle said.

Here's what happened next, according to the Matier and Ross report:

"But as the group moved together for the perfunctory photo, Rachel Binah, a former Richardson delegate who now supports Hillary Clinton, told Bill how 'sorry' she was to have heard former Clinton campaign manager James Carville call Richardson a 'Judas' for backing Obama.

It was as if someone pulled the pin from a grenade.

'Five times to my face (Richardson) said that he would never do that,' a red-faced, finger-pointing Clinton erupted.

The former president then went on a tirade that ran from the media's unfair treatment of Hillary to questions about the fairness of the votes in state caucuses that voted for Obama. It ended with him asking delegates to imagine what the reaction would be if Obama was trailing by just 1 percent and people were telling him to drop out.

'It was very, very intense,' said one attendee. 'Not at all like the Bill of earlier campaigns.'

When he finally wound down, Bill was asked what message he wanted the delegates to take away from the meeting.

At that point, a much calmer Clinton outlined his message of party unity.

'It was kind of strange later when he took the stage and told everyone to "chill out,"' one delegate told us.

'We couldn't help but think he was also talking to himself.'

When delegate Binah - still stunned from her encounter with Clinton - got home to Little River (Mendocino County) later in the day - there was a phone message waiting for her from State Party Chairman Art Torres, telling her the former president wanted him to apologize to her on his behalf for what happened.

Still, word of Clinton's blast shot all the way back to the New Mexico state Capitol, where Richardson spokesman Pahl Shipley reiterated Tuesday that his boss had never 'promised or guaranteed' Bill and Hillary his endorsement."

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