"[Ned] has earned our respect," Sharpton said. "He has earned our support."...

"That's kind of what Ned represents, the Samaritan," Jackson said. "You're measured not by what you have, but what you share."

Just a few blocks away from where U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman staged an embarrassingly flaccid reelection "rally" two days earlier in the heart of New Haven's black community, the Rev. Jesse Jacakson energized a packed house at Dixwell's Mount Bethel AME Church on behalf of Lieberman's surging challenger in the Aug. 8 primary, Ned Lamont, as well as Democratic gubernatorial primary candidate John DeStefano. Jackson decried Joe Lieberman as a Bush apologist and endorse challenger Ned Lamont in a fight for the "identity" of the Democratic Party.

...Getting rid of a candidate who no longer represents the interests and views of his constituents is what political parties ought to do. It´s not unworthy, it´s actually the point, I would have thought. Whether Mr. Lieberman likes it or not, he´s supposed to represent what we think, and our interests, and it is pretty clear that his hawkish stand on the Middle East is out of step with what most people in this state believe. It has also proven to be very dangerous.... As an 18-year veteran in the Senate Mr. Lieberman´s vocal and principled opposition to the Bush administration´s abuses of power would have carried tremendous weight. He could have been a bulwark against all that we´ve endured. Perhaps if he´d raised principled objections to the Bush war plan at the time, we wouldn´t be in the mess we are in now.

Sitting at a cafe in downtown Bridgeport, drinking iced tea and devouring most of the contents of a bread basket, Lamont described when the Iraq War first became personal for his family. Lamont recounted how his cousin´s son suffered serious shrapnel wounds while fighting in Fallujah two years ago. He tells the story with dramatic simplicity worthy of a Hollywood script.

¨He was thrown back hard, took a couple shots at this insurgent, got him,¨ Lamont says. ¨This guy went down, but he was wired. Totally wired with explosives. And when he dropped his gun, it exploded and it was shrapnel from that that took out my cousin´s son. And he went to the Green Zone, to the hospital, was in a slow recovery there ... He was looking out the window and a kid was outside the gate getting closer and closer and closer, and the guards were saying, ´prohibited´... That´s one of the problems. We´ve got 130,000 troops they can´t communicate with anybody, ´Go away, go away, not safe.´ The kid got closer. And they went out to turn the kid around, get him away from the hot zone there. And his dad was behind some bush with a cell phone, using that to remote-detonate his child. Blew up and took out two of our GIs with him.

¨We have no idea the nature of the war we´re in over there. And I was always opposed to the war. I just thought it was badly conceived, naïve going in there. I´ve heard thousands of stories since ... You know who´s most opposed to this war? It´s veterans, it´s parents with kids there.¨

Colbert said on last night's show that the offer to Lieberman, dubbed "Showless Joe," still stands. The empty leather chair remained next to Colbert's desk, but he said there's now a fresh box of Cocoa Puffs and, possibly, a "glowpen" in the package.

Colbert said he expected Lieberman to accept his challenge to appear on the show last night. He even turned to interview Lieberman at one point, and asked about the senator's relationship with President Bush.

But the chair was still empty. "I set aside the whole portion of this show for an interview," an apologetic Colbert said to the audience.