In [51]: from elementtree import ElementTree as et
In [52]: s
Out[52]: '<p>blah <b>bleh</b> blih</p>'
In [53]: t=et.fromstring(s)
In [54]: " ".join( [ t.tostring() for t in t.findall('*') ] )
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
<type 'exceptions.AttributeError'> Traceback (most recent call last)
/home/jv/KnowledgeMate/KnowledgeMate/<ipython console> in <module>()
<type 'exceptions.AttributeError'>: _ElementInterface instance has no attribute 'tostring'