I don’t have too much to add to the exchange that culminated in my ascent last Friday to the peerage — the rank of criminals, psychopaths, and perfectly decent conservatives — that comprise Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Persons in the World.” If you want the background, it’s here, here, and here.

On the merits of the argument — whether or not Lincoln’s failure to become a United State Senator constituted him losing a political election — I’m comfortable sticking with my guns. I’d add only that if Olbermann wants to live by semantics he’d best be prepared to die by them. If he wants to get cute about “popular” elections being the only ones that count, then we should rightly say that Lincoln never lost any popular elections, because he never participated in any — the elections he won were too white and too male to count as “popular.”

Oh, and as Phil Klein ably points out at AmSpec, you know who thinks Abe Lincoln lost a Senate race in 1858?

Abe Lincoln.