I'd go for Perl. 90% of what you want to do has already been done and is available from CPAN.
Quotes collected by Bruce Eckel:
Python is executable pseudocode. Perl is executable line noise.
Perl is like vice grips. You can do anything with it, and it's the wrong tool for every job.
Perl is worse than Python because people wanted it worse. Larry Wall (Creator of Perl), 14 Oct 1998
I would actively encourage my competition to use Perl. Sean True, 30 Mar 1999