WaPo’s David Broder Bashes CPAC Conservatives, Loves McCain

After publishing an astoundingly positive column about Republican presidential candidate John McCain Thursday, the Washington Post's David Broder must have felt the need to bash some conservatives or risk being excommunicated by his liberal friends.

Looking to make amends, Broder went on Sunday's "Meet the Press," and disparaged CPAC attendees as being "aginners" with "a limited constituency."

Yet, moments later, he returned to his McCain love-fest.

But, before we get there, here's what Broder had to say about CPAC (video available here):

I had an interesting conversation the other night with Frank Fahrenkopf, who was the Republican National Committee chairman when Ronald Reagan was president, and he was recalling that exactly the same people who were raising hell with John McCain now at CPAC and these other conservative conventions were doing the same thing with Ronald Reagan when Reagan was in the White House. And he said, there is an element in that conservative wing of the Republican Party that are just "aginners." And these folks have a limited constituency.

Having duly insulted many on the right, Broder felt free to once again express his love for the Arizona senator:

MR. RUSSERT: Now, David Broder, I read in your column on Thursday you may have dissent from that. You wrote this:

"Still, McCain is the only candidate in either party with a favorable personal rating by Republicans, Democrats, independents and evangelical voters. He will be formidable."

MR. BRODER: I believe that, and I think against either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama--they're very different races, depending on which Democrat wins, but I don't see how McCain, positioned as he has been over time now, is anything less than a 46, 47 percent candidate.

Is Broder just trying to be a tad controversial, or did his "46, 47 percent candidate" delimiter make such remarks more palatable for his constituents?