I am trying to figure out how to suppress the display of user input on stdout.
raw_input() followed by any print statement preserves what the user typed
raw_input()
You might be able to do what you want with VT100 control codes.
Something like this maybe:
CURSOR_UP_ONE = '\x1b[1A' ERASE_LINE = '\x1b[2K' print(CURSOR_UP_ONE + ERASE_LINE)