Logged In: YES 
user_id=6405

*ahem*
sorry, the test I did was actually:
>>> import binascii
>>> binascii.a2b_base64(binascii.b2a_base64('a').strip())
'a'
>>> binascii.a2b_base64(binascii.b2a_base64('ab').strip())
'ab'
>>> binascii.a2b_base64(binascii.b2a_base64('abc').strip())
'abc'
>>> 
binascii.a2b_base64(binascii.b2a_base64('abcd').strip())