He never said explicitly, he was just making a general statement. Not that it matters whether he did or didn't, there's a lot of things wrong with C, it will most likely eventually disappear, but not for reasons outlined in this article. That's what he was saying.
Well, he dismissed Bright’s argument as a random pet peeve from people who haven’t written a line of code in C before, so yes, I do think he said it explicitly.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
This is one of HN's comment guidelines. If you're not sure that someone is who you think they are, you can just ask, e.g.: "Hey, are you Walter Bright who did X and Y?"
What's the implication here? I only know one COBOL developer but they seem to be doing quite well for themselves, making over $400k a year for something like 15 hours of work a week.