Bizarre error from help()

[Roy Smith]

In article <mailman.2906.1123643664.10512.python-list at python.org>,
 "Delaney, Timothy (Tim)" <tdelaney at avaya.com> wrote:

> Roy Smith wrote:
> 
> > Traceback (most recent call last):
> >   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
> >   File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/site.py", line 307, in   call  
> >     import pydoc
> >   File "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/pydoc.py", line 49, in ?
> >     from string import expandtabs, find, join, lower, split, strip,
> > rfind, rstrip
> > ImportError: cannot import name expandtabs
> 
> Looks most likely that there something messed up with your python
> install. What happens if you do:
> 
>     >>> from string import expandtabs
> 
> ? Do you get a similar error?

No, that works fine. But, now I can't even reproduce the error I reported 
earlier (when I try, I get the help message as expected).  And, yes, that 
was with a brand new interpreter session.  Strange.