In which order is an if statement evaluated in Python

The left clause will be evaluated first, and then the right one only if the first one is False.

This is why you can do stuff like:

if not person or person.name == 'Bob':
    print "You have to select a person and it can't be Bob"

Without it breaking.

Conversely, with an and clause, the right clause will only be evaluated if the first one is True:

if person and person.name:
   # ...

Otherwise an exception would be thrown when person is None.