The photos from Chicago two weeks ago told the whole, astonished story.

I’d seen that look before.

Four years ago, dismayed Parisians wore the same shell-shocked expressions as the International Olympic Committee selected London to host the 2012 Summer Games.

For Chicago, bidding to host the 2016 Olympics, the vote in Copenhagen was a staggering defeat. It wasn’t so much that Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, wasn’t viewed as a formidable contender, but rather that Chicago, even with 11th-hour pitches from the Obama family, was snubbed by the IOC voters in the first round.

Four cities were on the final ballot — Rio, Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid. IOC protocol calls for the city with the fewest votes to be eliminated each round until one achieves a majority from the 106-member committee.

Not even the Cubs have walloped the city with such a global punch in the gut.

Chicagoans will get over it. The bid process shined light on the city’s unique treasures — its parks, its lakefront, its downtown. Americans will come to Chicago, even if the Olympics won’t.

In truth, after the initial haymaker, the dispatches from Denmark have painted a clearer picture not so much of a rejection of Chicago, but rather a classic case of snotty IOC politics.

As Phil Hersh of the Chicago Tribune worked the room, he discovered that petty IOC members turned up their noses at the Chicago bid for everything from ill feelings toward the new U.S. Olympic Committee leadership to having to wait in line for 45 minutes to shake hands with Michelle Obama.

Did the president make a mistake in flying to Copenhagen? Hindsight and Republicans say yes, but that’s not such an easy question to answer. Paris was roundly considered the 2012 favorite four years ago, until then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair began shaking hands and promising sunny London weather.

A sitting head of state can no longer win. If he goes to the IOC meeting and his country’s city loses, he’s a grandstanding bad-luck charm who wasted the nation’s time and jet fuel money. If he doesn’t go, he’s a lazy traitor.

Hold on a minute, though. This wasn’t the pope that President Obama went to see. It wasn’t a G8 summit or a meeting on nuclear disarmament.

No, the Copenhagen vote was the world’s most over-hyped gathering of hot air. Many IOC members, no doubt, are earnest and well-meaning. Some, it appears, even after the 2002 IOC reforms, are in it only for the pomp, caviar and the Reebok goodie bags.

How arrogant of them to “expect” a world leader to come begging to them.

Hersh’s conclusion in the Tribune is probably right, that the ongoing upheaval at the top of the USOC probably scuttled the Chicago bid before it ever got to Denmark. Acting chief executive officer Stephanie Streeter and USOC chairman Larry Probst had neither the Olympic background nor the support to help Chicago in its bid.

How ironic it was last Friday when the announcement came that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Next time he addresses the IOC, maybe he’ll bring goodie bags.