IRC Bot trouble..

[yawgmoth7]

I'm currently writing a IRC bot for fun...here is the code that I have
writen so far:

import sys
import socket
import string
import time
HOST="irc.freenode.net"
PORT=6667
NICK="PapaJorgio_"
IDENT="Papa"
REALNAME="Jorgio"
CHANNEL = "#holder"
buffer = ""
clientsock=socket.socket()
clientsock.connect((HOST, PORT))
clientsock.send("NICK %s\r\n" % NICK)
clientsock.send("USER %s %s bla :%s\r\n" % (IDENT, HOST, REALNAME))
clientsock.send("JOIN %s\r\n" % (CHANNEL))
clientsock.send("PRIVMSG #holder :There's a new AI in town foo.\r\n")
while 1:
	buffer=buffer+clientsock.recv(1024)
	temp=string.split(buffer, "\n")
	print buffer
	buffer=temp.pop()
	for line in temp:
			print "|%s|" % repr(line)
			line=string.rstrip(line)
			if "-part" in line:
					clientsock.send("PART #holder :I am leet.\r\n")
			elif "hello" in line:
				clientsock.send("PRIVMSG #holder :Hey...\r\n")
			elif "BlueInferno" in line:
				clientsock.send("PRIVMSG #holder :OH NOES! >:o\r\n")
			elif "-whois" in line:
					query = line.split()[4]
					clientsock.send("WHOIS eff.org %s\r\n" % query)
					buffer2 = clientsock.recv(1024)
					clientsock.send("PRIVMSG #holder :%s\r\n" % buffer2)
			elif "-nick" in line:
				nick = line.split()[4]
				clientsock.send("NICK %s\n" % nick)
			elif "PING" in line:
				clientsock.send("PONG %s\r\n" % line[1])

Now...it is in a very early stage (started writing it maybe 45 minutes
ago). But, I have a few questions regarding some of the code that is
not working. One of the things I ham having a big trouble with is the
-whois part. I know that I cannot assign a variable like that (Since
socket's don't really work that way..I believe?). Basically I want to
it run a -whois query and print it to the channel..but I can not get
it to print it to the channel.Another problem is the 'PING' part. I
have no clue why it doesn't respond with PONG...it should work. I am
our of ideas >:(. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you for your
time/help.