En Python me sale un error:

Exception:  (<type 'exceptions.AttributeError'>,
AttributeError("'str' object has no attribute 'read'",), <traceback object at 0x1543ab8>)

Dado el código de python:

def getEntries (self, sub):
    url = 'http://www.reddit.com/'
    if (sub != ''):
        url += 'r/' + sub

    request = urllib2.Request (url + 
        '.json', None, {'User-Agent' : 'Reddit desktop client by /user/RobinJ1995/'})
    response = urllib2.urlopen (request)
    jsonofabitch = response.read ()

    return json.load (jsonofabitch)['data']['children']

¿Qué significa este error y qué hice para causarlo?