[gentoo-user] trouble with python

I just tried to run python-updater and received several lines like the
following
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<string>", line 7, in <module>
    ImportError: No module named portage

It did find 4 files to update

    [ebuild   R    ] dev-python/gconf-python-2.28.1:2  USE="-examples" 0 kB
    [ebuild   R    ] dev-libs/libgamin-0.1.10-r4  USE="-debug -python -static-libs" ABI_X86="(64) -32 (-x32)" 0 kB
    [ebuild   R    ] sys-libs/libcap-ng-0.7.3  USE="-python -static-libs" 0 kB
    [ebuild   R    ] sys-libs/cracklib-2.9.0-r1  USE="nls zlib -python -static-libs" 0 kB

However, after the merges, running python-updater again, gave the same
result.

I remerged python-updater with no change.

I know that I should be changing my python3 from 3.2 to 3.3 since I have
gotten msgs from other merges saying

    Building package for python3.3 only while python3.2 is active.
    Please consider switching the active Python 3 interpreter:

            eselect python set --python3 python3.3

    Please note that after switching the active Python interpreter,
    you may need to run 'python-updater' to rebuild affected packages.

But I worry about relying on python-updater when it is giving errors.
Should I do the requested eselect ?

thanks,
allan