New to bRight & Early each day is going to be your First Cup — the blog posts and news stories that I’m looking at to start my day. It will contain some quick looks at items from my blogrolls. You are welcomed (even encouraged) to send your suggestions for posts I should include. Email the links to: firstcup at brightandearlyblog dot com. Not every suggestion will be included, of course.

Here is the first First Cup for Tuesday 03.21.06:

Blogs for Bush (Mark Noonan) Reporting on Iraq — “I’ve seen a lot of bad reporting in my life, but I’ve never seen anything so divorced from reality as the MSM coverage of Iraq.”

Wizbang (Jay Tea) Build your own coalition — “In the initial invasion of Iraq, we were the predominant force. The overwhelming majority of combatants were Americans. But we hardly went alone. 47 other nations all supported us, a good quarter of the members of the United Nations — just to cite a landmark. And Of the original 48, 23 still have forces in Iraq.”

In The Bullpen (Chad Evans) If a Tree Falls in an Iraqi Desert . . . — “. . . will the media cover it? After reading the following exchange, I must conclude the answer is only if the U.S. knocked it down, put a rag over the tree’s head and called it Betty.”

TMH’s Bacon Bits (The MaryHunter) I’m Not Done with Dubai Yet… — “…and neither are Victor Davis Hanson and Mark Steyn, who are (usually) highly respected as being on the cutting edge of conservative thought. It is at least some comfort that I find myself on the side of these esteemed folk when they write on the Dubai Ports World deal.”

The Jawa Report (Bluto) Al-Jazeera Publishes the Obvious While MSM Ignores It — “The American mainstream media have been queerly incurious about the al-Askiriya shrine bombing in February that touched off sectarian violence in Iraq.”

Enjoy.