Did you see that? Wall Street Journal gives up.

The earth moved last Wednesday. Before the tectonic shift, the Wall Street Journal stood firmly behind the House Republican majority’s position that 1) any debt ceiling increase had to be matched by real spending cuts of an equal or larger amount, and 2) tax increases of any kind were off the table.

After the shift, the Journal argued against the House Republican position, supporting Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s proposal to allow Obama to have his debt ceiling increase without budget cuts, but with Republicans allowed the fig leaf of being able to vote against the increase.

A Wall Street Journal earthquake. The Republican defense collapses.

Here are the details.

1. On July 11, the Wall Street Journal carried an article by Carol E. Lee, John D. McKinnon, and Naftali Bendavid reporting the inside story of secret discussions between the President and House Speaker Boehner to solve the debt ceiling impasse:

Messrs. Obama and Boehner began to seriously negotiate a $4 trillion deficit-reduction deal the week of June 27, when the speaker indicated he was open to raising revenues through the tax code, a senior administration official said.

To generate the revenue Mr. Obama needed to make a $4 trillion deal palatable for Democrats, Mr. Boehner agreed to explore letting the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire as scheduled in January 2013, while extending the cuts for Americans making under $250,000 a year.

In exchange, Mr. Obama would agree to significant savings in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and comprehensive tax reform to simplify the tax code and lower rates by early 2012.

Whoa! Boehner agrees to exactly what Obama is fighting for, tax increases on the wealthy? Really?

2. Venting unhappiness with its own correspondents’ story, the Journal immediately penned an editorial, making sure the newspaper’s official position appeared in the very edition carrying the story of Boehner’s willingness to support a tax increase. The editors laid down their displeasure with Boehner in crystal-clear language:

a non-exhaustive list of ObamaCare's tax increases [totals] $438 billion in new revenue over 10 years. But even that is understated because by 2019 the annual revenue increase is nearly $90 billion, or $900 billion in the 10 years after that. Yet Mr. Obama wants to add another $1 trillion in new taxes on top of this.

Last November Republicans won the House and landslide gains in many states in large part because of the deep unpopularity of the stimulus and ObamaCare. Mr. Boehner has a mandate for spending cuts and repealing the Affordable Care Act. If Republicans instead agree to raise taxes in return for future spending cuts that may or may not happen, they will simply be the tax collectors for Mr. Obama's much expanded entitlement society.

3. Two days later, McConnell’s proposal collapsed GOP determination to tie a debt increase to real budget cuts and no tax increases. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial staff went along with McConnell, leaving the House Republican position isolated, alone, on the other side of the fault line. How else to read this editorial?

Obama is trying to present Republicans with a Hobson's choice: Either repudiate their campaign pledge by raising taxes, or take the blame for any economic turmoil and government shutdown as the U.S. nears a debt default. . . This is the political context in which to understand [McConnell's proposal] to force Obama to take ownership of any debt-limit increase. If the President still insists on a tax increase, then Republicans will walk away.

[T]he blogosphere [called] this a sellout. . . [But if] Obama insists on a tax increase, and Republicans won't vote for one, then what's the alternative. . .? [V]oters [now opposed to] a debt-limit increase will turn on a dime when Americans start learning that they won't get Social Security checks. Republicans will then run like they're fleeing the Pamplona bulls, and chaotic retreats are the ugliest kind.

The entitlement state can't be reformed by one house of Congress in one year against a determined President and Senate held by the other party. It requires more than one election.

Journal to House Republicans: "Give up! We did."

I know what happened. I don’t know why.