Fetch contents of a URL with HTTP Basic Authentication

http_basic.py

import urllib2
import base64

def fetch(url, username, password):
    try:
        request = urllib2.Request(url)
        base64string = base64.encodestring('%s:%s' % (username, password)).replace('\n', '')
        request.add_header("Authorization", "Basic %s" % base64string)
        return urllib2.urlopen(request).read()
    except urllib2.HTTPError as ex:
        print "Error connecting: " + str(ex)
    except urllib2.URLError as ex:
        print "Error connecting: " + str(ex)
    return ''