ssh popen stalling on password redirect output?

[Cantankerous Old Git]

draghuram at gmail.com wrote:
> In general, it is good idea to use expect kind of tool to deal with
> interactive programs like ssh. You may try using pexpect
> (http://pexpect.sourceforge.net).
> 

I tried tha once (on Solaris) and found that ssh could tell that 
pexpect wasn't a real tty and refused to connect. In the end, I 
had pexpect  do a telnet 127.0.0.1, log in, then so ssh to the 
real destination. Pain in the ass but it worked.

The Cog