“Shocking in scope if not in content, the leak of 91,000 classified U.S. records on the Afghanistan war by the whistle-blower website Wikileaks.org is one of the largest unauthorized disclosures in military history,” the AP writes. “The documents cover much of what the public already knows about the troubled nine-year conflict: U.S. spec-ops forces have targeted militants without trial, Afghans have been killed by accident, and U.S. officials have been infuriated by alleged Pakistani intelligence cooperation with the very insurgent groups bent on killing Americans.”

The New York Times: "The material comes to light as Congress and the public grow increasingly skeptical of the deepening involvement in Afghanistan and its chances for success as next year’s deadline to begin withdrawing troops looms. The archive is a vivid reminder that the Afghan conflict until recently was a second-class war, with money, troops and attention lavished on Iraq while soldiers and Marines lamented that the Afghans they were training were not being paid."

Greg Sargent sees this as yet another distraction for the Obama White House. “No matter how grim the prognosis for the war is in these documents, the economy, not Afghanistan, will decide the midterms.”

Obama’s “message for the fall elections, which are looking ominous for his Democrats, is that Republicans caused the nation's economic troubles, but he and the Democrats are starting to fix them. So stick with the Democrats and don't go back to the GOP,” the AP says. “‘This is a choice between the policies that led us into the mess or the policies that are leading out of the mess,’ Obama said recently in Las Vegas. Trouble is, it's a tough sell to voters who've seen little progress.”

“Feel like going to a Chicago birthday bash for President Obama, who turns 49 on Aug. 4? Be prepared to pony up a $30,000 donation to the Democratic National Committee, it was reported yesterday,” The New York Post writes.