Text processing for a non-programmer

[S D G]

I'm a tech writer with practically no programming experience, but 
I'm interested in learning programming so as to be able to write 
some text manipulation programs.  It seems like Python would be a 
good language to start with :)

As a starting project, I'd like to write something that will format 
my usenet followups nicely.

Something like: Leave all the headers alone Wrap unquoted lines at 
the 65th column If quoted lines are longer than 80 characters, wrap 
them

Has anybody got a similar python script that I can use as a starting 
point.  I learn best by hacking examples :)
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S D G                                                 http://www.doco.net