[CentOS] timezone issue

hey list!

having a slightly odd time issue on one host... can I get some help with this?

This is the current time from a working system:

Sun Apr 17 00:28:18 EDT 2011

However from the problem system this is the time:

Sat Apr 16 20:30:01 EDT 2011

I have set the time zone as such:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 23 Apr 16 19:41 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/EST

But when I run ntpdate it returns the wrong time:

16 Apr 19:46:13 ntpdate[1968]: step time server 204.235.61.9 offset 14408.651330 sec

[root@VIRTCENT08:/etc] #date Sat Apr 16 19:46:42 EST 2011

can someone hit me upside the head with the cluehammer?

tx!