Is there an easy way to work in binary with Python? 
I have a file of data I am receiving (in 1's and 0's) and would like to scan through it and look for certain patterns in binary. It has to be in binary because due to my system, I might be off by 1 bit or so which would throw everything off when converting to hex or ascii. 
For example, I would like to open the file, then search for '0001101010111100110' or some string of binary and have it tell me whether or not it exists in the file, where it is, etc.
Is this doable or would I be better off working with another language?
You would be better working off another language. Python could do it (if you use for example,
file = open("file", "wb")
(appending the b opens it in binary), and then using a simple search, but to be honest, it is much easier and faster to do it in a lower-level language such as C.
Workin with binary in python