SteveSilver.net

Impeach the King

Howard Eskin reportedly made a bit of a boo-boo on yesterday's show, according to Will Bunch of the Philly Daily News. Eskin was doing one of his "political shows," when this happened:

When it comes to facts about American politics, Eskin has less information than your cab driver who just arrived here from Uzbekistan three weeks ago. Tonight, we switched over just as a caller was comparing what's going on the Bush administration to George Orwell's "1984," but Eskin wasn't sure he'd go that far.

"That book came out, what, about 15 years ago?," Eskin asked.

The caller seemed stunned -- pausing for a moment before noting that in fact Orwell published it in the late 1940s. (To be exact, 1949 -- here's Wikipedia's article on the book.)

We would have been speechless -- especially because "about 15 years" ago would have been 1991, or seven years after the real 1984. It's very hard to write a futuristic novel about a time that was two-thirds of a decade earlier. If Orwell had written "1984" 15 years ago, he would have had to put in chapters about the Cubs' collapse in the NL playoffs and a whole riff on Walter Mondale. Probably wouldn't have been as good a book.

Then there's the whole problem of Orwell dying in 1950, but we won't even go there.

See, considering events of the last three weeks (and yesterday) aren't you glad Eskin didn't become GM of the Phillies?

Posted by Stephen Silver at May 16, 2006 04:36 PM