Tonight on the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric will broadcast a new Q&A segment in a series called “Primary Questions: Character, Leadership and the Candidates.” Over at HuffPo, the “Eat the Press” bloggers have posted a partial transcript from tonight’s edition. They don’t seem to have noticed the irony, however, in John Edwards’ back and forth on the timely topic of marital infidelity:

COURIC: Harry Truman said, “A man not honorable in his marital relations is not usually honorable in any other.” Some people don’t feel comfortable supporting a candidate who has not remained faithful to his or her spouse. Can you understand their position?

EDWARDS: Of course. I mean, for a lot of Americans– including the family that I grew up with, I mean, it’s– it’s fundamental to– how you judge people and human character– whether you keep your word, whether you keep what is your ultimate word, which is that– you love– your spouse, and you’ll stay with them.

[ ... ]

COURIC: So how important do you think it is in the grand scheme of things?

EDWARDS: I think the most important qualities in a president in today’s world are trustworthiness– sincerity, honesty, strength of leadership. And– and certainly that goes to a part of that. It’s not the whole thing. But it goes to a part of it.

Jessica Alba, Jamie Lynn Spears, and Christina Aguilera aren’t the only famous pregnant women. There’s also Rielle Hunter.

Who?

She’s not famous yet, but give her a few hours. Today’s National Enquirer is about to hit the supermarket checkout racks.

Rielle Hunter, formerly named Lisa Druck (don’t ask … I don’t know), is the alleged mistress of presidential candidate John Edwards. The Enquirer story also says Hunter is pregnant with Edwards’ child. And in hiding.

Which kinds makes me flash back to August, when Good Morning America went all gaga over how Edwards and his wife renewed their wedding vows after her breast cancer diagnosis. And how People magazine just happened to have photos of this really intimate backyard ceremony. From the August 9 GMA:

DIANE SAWYER: Let’s turn now to our ‘Picture of the Morning.” And they are new pictures and David Muir is bringing them to us. You’ve been covering the Edwards campaign.

DAVID MUIR: Yeah. And this is an incredibly personal photograph that we’ve now gotten a chance to see. It’s the renewal of the vows in the backyard in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The former senator and his wife Elizabeth there, with their children, Kate and the two little ones, Emma Claire and Jack. And apparently, this was an idea that they decided to do while they were back at the doctor’s office in the spring when they suspected that the cancer had come back for Elizabeth. John Edwards asking her, turning to her in the doctor’s office and saying, ‘Will you marry me again?” And Elizabeth actually told him, she said, she asked back, ‘Will you take another 30 years?” And he said, ‘Absolutely.”

Awww…. That’s sweet. Except that John was apparently making a baby with someone else around the same time he renewed his “I Do.”

His campaign platform book (see page 61) says that in an Edwards presidency, the government would “Require fathers to support their children, increase child support collection, and help fathers find work.”

All three of which appear just a bit ironic now.

Bonus points: BigHeadDC reports that Hunter met Edwards after the campaign hired her to shoot a “softer side of the candidate” promotional video.