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Comic floors Ford

You can’t handle the truthiness!

Comic-pundit Stephen Colbert went on a truth-seeking mission with Harold Ford Jr., last night, roasting the likely Senate hopeful over his past statements on gay marriage and abortion rights a week after he filleted him as a flip-flopper on his late-night show.

The much-anticipated Colbert-Ford face-off came after the TV funnyman mocked the former Tennessee congressman last week for “expediency” and accused him of changing positions to suit his needs.

Ford, apparently eager to prove he can take on any critic, decided to make a personal appearance on the Comedy Central show.

“Last week, I gave you my Alpha Dog of the Week,” Colbert said at the outset, an honor he bestowed on the potential Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand challenger on a previous show — in a clip that went viral across the Web.

Colbert joked that the six-minute interview was part of Ford’s New York state residency test and added he’s demonstrating he is “willing to change . . . positions to appeal to a New York audience. How do you respond to that compliment, sir?”

When Ford started to answer that he was “pro-choice,” Colbert cut him off and repeated comments the former congressman made when he was running for the Senate in Tennessee in 2006, in which he suggested he’d never been pro-choice.

“Did you change [from] pro-choice to not pro-choice, was that your choice?” Colbert said, to laughs.

Ford defended himself and gave the line he has given on the campaign trail to reporters about calling himself pro-life as a way to reclaim the phrase from rabid anti-abortion activists.

Ford, who only recently came out in favor of gay marriage after opposing it in Congress, said, “If you’re for politicians who are static in thinking, I’m not your guy.”

Colbert claimed Ford was giving the media complicated opinions, “You are saying these things in the media capital of the world, New York City, Gotcha Town!” Colbert said. “And you’re saying, ‘Come and gotcha me.’ ”

Colbert then urged Ford to find upstate Schenectady on Google Maps, and asked him if he has voted in the Big Apple since moving here a few years ago.

“No . . . but I am a registered voter,” Ford said.

“That’s good enough for me,” Colbert replied.

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Harold Ford Jr.
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maggie.haberman@nypost.com