The cleverer among you will espy the problem below immediately
$ export DATE=`date` $ echo $(DATE) bash: DATE: command not found
In my half-caffeinated state, it took several minutes of frustration to figure out what was wrong: $(DATE) is a Make-style variable; in Bash, $(DATE) is the same as `DATE` (a command substitution). The correct token is $DATE.
$ echo $DATE Tue Apr 15 11:08:38 EDT 2008
I apologize for inflicting my stupidity upon you.
Procrastiblog 