Robin, I agree that the charitable interpretation is possible. But when he said "It seemed a safe answer since no one could ever tell me I was wrong", I took him to be saying that whether he could be shown to be wrong or not was a major factor in saying what he did.

In that case, if he cared more about saying something that he couldn't be held responsible for if wrong than about having a justified and likely-to-be-correct position, I'd say that is at least as bad.