dscl doesn't work from inside re-attached screen

Question

I am on Mac OS X 10.5.8. I am not sure exactly when this started happening, but I find that when I re-attach to a screen session that was started from an ssh session, anything relying on dscl (directory services), or the underlying getent stuff, fails.

If I start the session on that machine in Terminal, everything works. Only remotely started screen sessions have problems when re-attached.

$ dscl . -list /Users
>> works

$ screen
$ dscl . -list /Users
>> works

[detached]

$ dscl . -list /Users
>> works

$ screen -x
$ dscl . -list /Users
Operation failed with error: eServerNotRunning

Also failing:

$ whoami
504

I have rebooted, debugged, and googled for about 6 hours now with no luck.

It is really painful since it affects lots of applications (ssh, git, rake, etc).

I am curious if this is affecting anyone else, or if anyone has any idea how to fix it.