Fatal Error Running Drush 4.4 with Drupal 7.2
Ok, another one for the "learning experience" column:

I specified

DRUSH_PHP=/path/to/php


right before this line in drush wrapper script:

if [ ! -z "$DRUSH_PHP" ] ; then


Works now.

Thanks @kiamlaluno &amp; @Berdir for your time and input. Hopefully this helps others. 

KM