Republican congressional aide involved in the investigation, comes clean with Josh. It turns out she met him not only once, but also on another occasion after she had found out what position he held, and Josh is not pleased. C.J. is provoked by an inexperienced lifestyle reporter, Sherri Wexler (Mara), trying to put her in a bad light and responds by embarrassing her in front of a full press room. Production The West Wing episodes were written close to production and at the time of the September 11 attacks Sorkin was writing on episode six of the season ("Gone Quiet"), which originally was to air on Halloween (October 31). The events caused consternation in the writing staff, and the episode had to be entirely rewritten. "I was kind of paralyzed," said Sorkin, "I didn't know what to write". Because of the attacks, air dates were postponed and the already finished "On the Day Before" became the Halloween episode instead. Nevertheless, the episode took on greater relevance to actual, international events than the writers had intended. On August 9, after the actors had just done a cold reading of the episode, they were informed about the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing, a Jerusalem suicide bombing in which an American was killed. The close similarity to an event in the script came as a shock to the actors. "It was mind-blowing," said Richard Schiff (Toby). Social and cultural references The title of this episode refers to a conversation that the President has with his staff towards the end of the episode. In it, he tells his staff that at a White House dinner, someone told him that on Yom Kippur Jews ask God for forgiveness, but "on the day before" Yom Kippur, called Erev Yom Kippur, Jews ask forgiveness from one another. The president remarks that "you can't ask forgiveness of God until you've asked forgiveness of people on the day before." In a reference to the Palestinian leadership, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization Yasser Arafat is mentioned by name. Even though foreign dignitaries were normally fictional on the show, producer Aaron Sorkin said it felt right to call the Chairman by his real name "'cause Arafat's been around forever and he'll be around forever". In a later episode, however ("Gaza" in season five), the name of the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority was changed to Nizar Farad, a fictional character. By