Newly built python 2.7.1 commands.getstatus succeeds :

$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd` LD_PRELINK=`pwd`/libpython2.7.so.1.0 ./python
Python 2.7.1 (r271:86832, Apr 28 2011, 15:53:47)
[GCC 4.6.0] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import os
>>> import re
>>> import sys
>>> import commands
>>> print commands.getstatus("/.")
drwxr-xr-x. 25 root root 4096 Apr 20 15:28 /.
>>>