[BUG] DistutilsMetaFinder breaks distutils submodule imports when old setuptools is higher on path

setuptools version

setuptools====60.7.0

Python version

Python 3.7

OS

macOS

Additional environment information

Similar to #2957, this occurs when an old setuptools is on path but a newer setuptools (with a distutils shimming .pth file) is installed.

Description

This is a followup to #2957 where the .pth shim broke distutils imports when an older setuptools is higher on path. The fix in #2962 allows distutils to be imported as well as submodules, but those submodules are not usable.

I'm running into this issue when running a PEX which contains an older version of setuptools but the Python interpreter has a newer version of setuptools. In the bootstrap phase pex removes the new setuptools from sys.path and adds the older setuptools. DistutilsMetaFinder is not removed from sys.meta_path during this phase and causes distutils submodules to fail.

Expected behavior

The presence of a new-but-not-loadable setuptools on sys.path doesn't break distutils submodules.

How to Reproduce

As in #2957 a reproducer is:

python3 -m venv /tmp/bang && source /tmp/bang/bin/activate  # give us a clean venv to work in
python -m pip install 'setuptools>60'  # install new setuptools to venv site-packages
python -m pip install 'setuptools<45' -t .  # install old setuptools to cwd- higher than site-packages on path for most systems
python -c "import distutils.util; print(distutils.util)"

Output

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: module 'distutils' has no attribute 'util'