It has sane, symmetric minimal design that gets closures. It also looks like a programming language. I can type Lua into the Firebug repl and not worry about indentation.
The notion that python isn't real, is just silly.
You see, everyone using python, ruby, perl, php, and other similar platforms - we're not programming, we're just scripting. The difference is so extreme, that, well... if you don't understand, I'm not going to bother explaining.
I've been doing PHP for 16 years (among other things), and have grown tired of the "scripting vs whatever" debates/comments/remarks/jibes/etc over the years. That didn't come across enough in my original post - sorry. :/
Python is a full and mature programming language, lots of software you probably use every day is written in it, like dropbox, calibre, miro or websites like Reddit and YouTube for example.
You'll find a longer list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Python_software
Sure you can use Python for scripting, but that doesn't mean it isn't a real programming language. It just makes it more versatile than other languages.
$ (cd /usr/bin; file *) |grep -i "python script"