What really provoked Mr. Frist's crocodile tears was the foiling of yet another ruse to distract Americans from the wreckage in Iraq.

But conservatives' attacks on his credibility, he said, are merely an effort to distract Americans from a far graver fact: that the United States went to war on the basis of flimsy, distorted evidence.

Saddam Hussein and the other enemies of peace may have thought that the serious debate currently before the House of Representatives would distract Americans or weaken our resolve to face him down.

To this retired career officer, the gulf war, Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia have distracted Americans from focusing on their primary security threat: nuclear weapons.

Fear and hatred have been fed in a very effective effort to distract Americans from the real issues: illegal immigration, the war in Iraq, exploding energy costs, the federal government's ineffective response to disasters, Social Security and a total disconnect between Washington and its constituency.

But the resentment raised by such irritants distracts Americans from a central truth.

By seeking to suppress these photos, the Pentagon and the White House are trying to distract Americans from the reality of the war in Iraq.

Mr. Wilson said he was growing increasingly frustrated with the scandal over the leaking of his wife's name, because it was distracting Americans from what he called the "real issues" concerning why the United States went to war with Iraq and how it succeeds now.

The nation's many wars against drugs have been used to distract Americans from other realities of politics.

The president wants nothing more than to distract Americans from his embattled and weakened state and the scandal and failure that have accompanied it.