Only if python gained the ability to execute externals and handle stdin/stdout/stderr, return value, & environment directly instead of through exec(). And ditched the meaningful indentation. And was backwards compatible so that old scripts work today and today scripts work tomorrow.

Bash has it's own uglies so I guess it's fair enough to compare two imperfect things, but the problem is these are two different jobs, and python just doesn't do the job bash does, and that job needs doing, so python can't be the replacement.