On the night of the State of the Union, Sam has to explain the process of writing the speech and grading reaction to it to a magazine reporter (Traylor Howard) throughout the evening; C.J. arranged the coverage aware that the reporter, Lisa Sherbourn, is Sam's ex-fiancée; flashing back to the speechwriting process, we see the president dining with several of Abbey's medical colleagues, and they ponder the future of cancer research, motivating Bartlet to ask that a section be added to the SOTU in which he calls for U.S. scientists to find a cancer cure by 2012; the staff, convinced that the Congressional censure is weighing heavily on the president, tries to talk him out of this bold but risky proposal.