Pity the tobacco companies. Last spring, they thought they had cut a great deal with the attorneys general of 40 states. They follow that up by making a record $4.4 million in political contributions. Then they find out that, every once in a while, the United States Congress actually means business.

Big Tobacco pulled out of negotiations on a comprehensive agreement Wednesday for the same lame reasons the industry’s been kicking and screaming about for years: hardship for shareholders; harm to hardscrabble farmers; and — the most ludicrous of all — concerns that higher cigarette prices to discourage kids from smoking would create a cheap black market and actually encourage them.

What RJR, Lorillard and the others aren’t saying, at least out loud, is that they got robbed. They bet big bucks ($30 million in the last 10 years) on Congress got taken to the cleaners. Every once in a while, especially in election years, the public actually matters. Go figure.

When the states’ deal was signed last spring, members of Congress lined up for the cameras to make it adundantly clear they were not going to rubber stamp it. Some said it wasn’t tough enough, some — you’ll find their names at the top of the contributions list — said maybe it went too far.

Clearly, the former are winning. Sen. John McCain’s bill, which sailed through committee, is much tougher than the settlement with the states. Roughly $150 billion tougher, with no immunity from individual or class-action lawsuits and with less protection for trade secrets. So just when it looks like real trouble, Tobacco tries to cut its losses and goes home.

Trouble is, Congress can keep playing, with or without the industry. Congress does not need Tobacco’s approval to raise tobacco taxes, to give the FDA the ability to regulate tobacco as a drug, to impose some controls on advertising content.

Tobacco bet heavily that sacks full of soft money would bail it out, that weeks of threatening to pull out of the negotiations would earn them a measure of sympathy. They lost, they got snookered. The sharpies in the silk suits turned to be rubes, ripe for the picking.