Republicans control the entire Georgia government for the first time since Reconstruction - and one of the many reforms the Georgia GOP is engaged in is re-writing the absurdly gerrymandered districts the Democrats (with judicial allies) set up after the 2000 census. Democrats are not, to say the least, happy about this:

ATLANTA After being out of power for decades, the new Republican majority in both houses of Georgia's Legislature is redistricting the state's 13 congressional districts and Democrats aren't happy.

"The current plan was drawn to maximize the amount of Democrats that could be elected to Congress. I don't really have a problem with that if they had done it based on redistricting principles," said U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga.

Gerrymandering is a terrible thing - even when GOPers do it; of course, most gerrymandering over the past century has been by the Democrats because most of the time they've held the majority of power. Now they are getting a bit of turn-about and they don't like it. The first impulse is to say "tough" and move on - but, really, I think we GOPers should show our finer qualities on this issue. What we should be doing is, indeed, demanding a re-draw of all these absurd Democratic districts, but we should as far as possible remove the political equation from it.

That is the tough part - getting politics out of it; but it can be done. I'd suggest, just as a starting point for discussion, that each State should select someone from outside the State to head a redistricting commission - someone without a dog in the hunt; and then let that person select a non-partisan group to draw the districts as compactly as possible, and let the chips fall where they may. It is my belief that GOP ideals are far superior to Democratic ideals and that we'll win even in closely contested districts provided we stoutly defend our programs and policies.