Newbie Question: Shell-like Scripting in Python?

[Scott Meyers]

I'm an experienced programmer, but I'm new to Python.  I'm working my way
through "Learning Python," and that's fine.  One of the things I want to do
is parse mp3 files and edit their ID3 tags, but I know that I must crawl
before I can run, and I'm happy to jog up the learning curve before trying
to parse binary files.  (I also know that a bunch of ID3 editing programs
already exist.  I just think it'd be a good learning exercise.)

Another thing I want to do is write short shell-like scripts for my Windows
machine, e.g., copy and move or rename files whose size fulfills some
criteria or whose name matches some regexp, etc.  One of the reasons I
decided to play with Python was that I thought it could do these
scripting-like things; the first sentence on the back of "Learning Python"
refers to its suitability for "quick scripts."  However, I haven't seen
anything in the book's TOC or index on shell-like scripts, and a cursory
scan of the info at www.python.org didn't show any examples of things like
manipulating the underlying file system in a shell-script like manner.  So
here's my question: will Python let me do that?  I'm not asking about how
powerful the language is -- I know I can do anything with it.  But suppose
I want to rename files matching foo.* to be bar.*.  Ideally, I'd like to be
able to say something like this:

  rename foo.* bar.*

Will Python let me do that kind of thing?  If so, great.  If not, that's
okay, too.  At this point, I'm just trying to set my expectations
correctly.

Thanks,

Scott