Looks like this wasn't a feature. Good thing I requested it and the totally awesome developers put it in...
https://github.com/paramiko/paramiko/issues/273
# !/usr/bin/python
import paramiko
def grab_banner(ip_address, port):
client = paramiko.SSHClient()
client.load_system_host_keys()
client.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
try:
client.connect(ip_address, port=port, username='username', password='bad-password-on-purpose')
except:
return client._transport.get_banner()
if __name__ == '__main__':
print grab_banner('192.168.1.26', 22)