Python 2.4.x  (cannot install any non-stock modules).
Question for you all. (assuming use of subprocess.popen)
Say you had 20 - 30 machines - each with 6 - 10 files on them that you needed to read into a variable.
Would you prefer to scp into each machine, once for each file (120 - 300 SCP commands total), reading each file after it's SCP'd down into a variable - then discarding the file.
Or - SSH into each machine, once for each file - reading the file into memory. (120 - 300 ssh commands total).
?
Unless there's some other way to grab all desired files in one shot per machine (files are named YYYYMMDD.HH.blah  - range would be given 20111023.00 - 20111023.23). - reading them into memory that I cannot think of?
scp lets you:

Copy entire directories using the -r flag: scp -r g0:labgroup/ .
Specify a glob pattern: scp 'g0:labgroup/assignment*.hs' .
Specify multiple source files: scp 'g0:labgroup/assignment1*' 'g0:labgroup/assignment2*' .

Not sure what sort of globbing is supported, odds are it just uses the shell for this. I'm also not sure if it's smart enough to merge copies from the same server into one connection.
Python - SCP vs SSH for multiple computers and multiple files