That letter to President Obama from Harvard law professsor Laurence Tribe trashing Sonia Sotomayor and hyping Elena Kagan is really something. One of the most delicious aspects is that, as the National Review contributor who dug the letter up, Ed Whelan, writes, "I'd bet that there's not a chance in a million that Tribe didn't contemporaneously send a copy of his letter to Kagan."
So now Justice Sotomayor knows that Justice Kagan knew that Justice Kagan's Harvard Law colleague was trashing Justice Sotomayor to his friend the president behind Justice Sotomayor's back. Not exactly great for relations between the two newest justices.
A lot of the press on the story has focused on Professor Tribe's trashing Judge Sotomayor, but the real import of the letter is that he was trashing Judge Sotomayor for the purpose of pushing Dean Kagan for the job instead.