Newbie: problem comparing values

[Jeremy]

Hi,

I'm trying to set up a script to check to see whether the person running
the script is root or not.  If they are, I want to make it exit
immediately.  This is the code that I have that I'm trying to use:


user = os.popen("whoami").read()
if user == "root":
  print "You are logged in as root"
else:
  print "You are not logged in as root."


The problem is that each time, no matter if it's root or not that's
running the script, it always says "You are not logged in as root." I
know that this has to be something small that I'm missing, and please
forgive me for asking such a "simple" question, but I've only been at
this for a couple of days (with python.  I have a few months of
experience with bash scripts).  I've checked about every resource I can
think of and I still can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks in advance for your help,
Jeremy