I run debian sid and apache2 with libapache2-mod-python2.3 and I added these lines
<Directory /var/www> AddHandler mod_python .py PythonDebug On </Directory>
in a virtualhost container.
Were those the only lines you added? You also should have actually loaded the module somewhere by adding something resembling:
LoadModule python_module modules/mod_python.so
-- Brian Beck Adventurer of the First Order -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
