Keep in bind that there the Python readline module may be linked to either GNU readline or the BSD editline (libedit) library and they have different command strings.  Note the warning here:

http://docs.python.org/dev/py3k/library/readline.html

Here's a snippet of what I have today in my startup file:

    import rlcompleter
    if 'libedit' in readline.__doc__:
        readline.parse_and_bind("bind ^I rl_complete")
    else:
        readline.parse_and_bind("tab: complete")

See Issue10666 for more details and some possible changes.