Harry Reid, partisan brawler, gets pattycake treatment from the press

Harry Reid has just pulled off a triple coup.

He got to make his own retirement announcement without having it leak in advance. He essentially got to anoint his successor. And despite years as a bare-knuckled partisan warrior who makes incendiary comments about the other side, he’s gotten a pretty nice media sendoff.

Usually when a 75-year-old lawmaker gets knocked out of the majority and then suffers a terrible accident, there’s all kinds of media speculation about whether he’ll hang it up. But who ever thought the Nevada Democrat would...