mysql query getting different results in mysql-python

I'm getting different results with what I understand to be the same query from two different interfaces. The first is a mysql shell:

mysql> select * from table where sub_date > '2012-11-08' order by sub_date asc limit 1\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
                 id: **176041922**

The second is a little function I put together to test a query that would pull a certain amount of records based on the datetime field "sub_date":

>>> r_query('>', '2012-11-08', '1')
((**18393664L**, 3, .....)

Here's the python module:

import MySQLdb
myuser = MySQLdb.connect(host='localhost', user='myuser', passwd='mypass', db='mydatabase')
cur = myuser.cursor()

def r_query(oper, date, limit):
    cur.execute("""select * from table where sub_date %s %s order by sub_date asc limit %s""" % (oper, date, limit)) 
    result = cur.fetchall()
    print result