Display Corrupted over remote connections for RHEL5 and CentOS5

[dead <dead tormented com>]

Greetings,

When running mc from console attached to an RHEL5 or CentOS5 system, it
displays fine, but when running mc over a remote/ssh connection, the
display is badly corrupted and becomes even more corrupted if you try to
navigate. I've already tried changing my $TERM environment variable to
various other settings - linux, xterm, vt100, etc, - but to no avail.
They all seem to have the same display issues. Any light you could shed
on the situation would be most appreciated. Google has not been kind! =)

I usually connect via openssh over the most current iTerm on OSX
10.4.10. However, I've tested with other terminal programs - putty on
winxp, securecrt on winxp, regular terminal in osx, etc - and they all
are plagued with the same corruption of the display.

Here's some hopefully relevant info from a CentOS5 system that's having
the issue:

$ mc -V
GNU Midnight Commander 2006-09-25-14
Virtual File System: tarfs, extfs, cpiofs, ftpfs, fish, smbfs, undelfs
With builtin Editor
Using system-installed S-Lang library with terminfo database
With subshell support as default
With support for background operations
With mouse support on xterm
With internationalization support
With multiple codepages support
Data types: char 8 int 32 long 32 void * 32 off_t 64 ecs_char 8

$ uname -a
Linux SERVERNAME 2.6.18-8.1.8.el5 #1 SMP Tue Jul 10 06:50:22 EDT 2007
i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

$ rpm -qi mc
Name        : mc                           Relocations: (not relocatable)
Version     : 4.6.1a                            Vendor: CentOS
Release     : 34.el5                        Build Date: Wed 14 Mar 2007
02:16:52 PM CST
Install Date: Fri 29 Jun 2007 10:12:57 PM CDT      Build Host:
builder4.centos.org
Group       : System Environment/Shells     Source RPM:
mc-4.6.1a-34.el5.src.rpm
Size        : 5444039                          License: GPL
Signature   : DSA/SHA1, Tue 03 Apr 2007 07:25:01 PM CDT, Key ID
a8a447dce8562897
URL         : http://www.ibiblio.org/mc/
Summary     : User-friendly text console file manager and visual shell

$ printenv (excerpts)
TERM=linux
SHELL=/bin/bash
INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc
LANG=en_US.UTF-8

$ infocmp
#       Reconstructed via infocmp from file: /usr/share/terminfo/l/linux
linux|linux console,
        am, bce, ccc, eo, mir, msgr, xenl, xon,
        colors#8, it#8, ncv#18, pairs#64,
       
acsc=+\020\,\021-\030.^Y0\333`\004a\261f\370g\361h\260i\316j\331k\277l\332m\300n\305o~p\304q\304r\304s_t\303u\264v\301w\302x\263y\363z\362{\343|\330}\234~\376,

        bel=^G, blink=\E[5m, bold=\E[1m, civis=\E[?25l\E[?1c,
        clear=\E[H\E[J, cnorm=\E[?25h\E[?0c, cr=^M,
        csr=\E[%i%p1%d;%p2%dr, cub1=^H, cud1=^J, cuf1=\E[C,
        cup=\E[%i%p1%d;%p2%dH, cuu1=\E[A, cvvis=\E[?25h\E[?8c,
        dch=\E[%p1%dP, dch1=\E[P, dim=\E[2m, dl=\E[%p1%dM,
        dl1=\E[M, ech=\E[%p1%dX, ed=\E[J, el=\E[K, el1=\E[1K,
        flash=\E[?5h\E[?5l$<200/>, home=\E[H, hpa=\E[%i%p1%dG,
        ht=^I, hts=\EH, ich=\E[%p1%d@, ich1=\E[@, il=\E[%p1%dL,
        il1=\E[L, ind=^J,
       
initc=\E]P%p1%x%p2%{256}%*%{1000}%/%02x%p3%{256}%*%{1000}%/%02x%p4%{256}%*%{1000}%/%02x,

        invis=\E[8m, kb2=\E[G, kbs=\177, kcbt=\E[Z, kcub1=\E[D,
        kcud1=\E[B, kcuf1=\E[C, kcuu1=\E[A, kdch1=\E[3~,
        kend=\E[4~, kf1=\E[[A, kf10=\E[21~, kf11=\E[23~,
        kf12=\E[24~, kf13=\E[25~, kf14=\E[26~, kf15=\E[28~,
        kf16=\E[29~, kf17=\E[31~, kf18=\E[32~, kf19=\E[33~,
        kf2=\E[[B, kf20=\E[34~, kf3=\E[[C, kf4=\E[[D, kf5=\E[[E,
        kf6=\E[17~, kf7=\E[18~, kf8=\E[19~, kf9=\E[20~,
        khome=\E[1~, kich1=\E[2~, kmous=\E[M, knp=\E[6~, kpp=\E[5~,
        kspd=^Z, nel=^M^J, oc=\E]R, op=\E[39;49m, rc=\E8, rev=\E[7m,
        ri=\EM, rmacs=\E[10m, rmam=\E[?7l, rmir=\E[4l,
        rmpch=\E[10m, rmso=\E[27m, rmul=\E[24m, rs1=\Ec\E]R,
        sc=\E7, setab=\E[4%p1%dm, setaf=\E[3%p1%dm,
       
sgr=\E[0;10%?%p1%t;7%;%?%p2%t;4%;%?%p3%t;7%;%?%p4%t;5%;%?%p5%t;2%;%?%p6%t;1%;%?%p7%t;8%;%?%p9%t;11%;m,

        sgr0=\E[0;10m, smacs=\E[11m, smam=\E[?7h, smir=\E[4h,
        smpch=\E[11m, smso=\E[7m, smul=\E[4m, tbc=\E[3g,
        u6=\E[%i%d;%dR, u7=\E[6n, u8=\E[?6c, u9=\E[c,
        vpa=\E[%i%p1%dd,

-- 
dead . dead tormented com