red herring
     n 1: any diversion intended to distract attention from the main
          issue
     2: a dried and smoked herring having a reddish color syn: smoked
        herring
     3: a first draft of a prospectus; must be clearly marked to
        indicate that parts may be changed in the final
        prospectus; "because some portions of the cover page are
        printed in red ink a preliminary prospectus is sometimes
        called a red herring" syn: preliminary prospectus
see also:
smoked herring preliminary prospectus 

54 moby thesaurus words for "red herring":
   anguille, art, artful dodge, artifice, blind, caviar, chicanery,
   conspiracy, contrivance, coup, craft, cute trick, deceit, design,
   device, dodge, eel, expedient, fakement, feint, fetch, fish,
   fish eggs, gambit, game, gimmick, grift, intrigue, jugglery,
   kipper, kippered salmon, knavery, little game, maneuver, move,
   plot, ploy, poisson, racket, roe, ruse, scheme, seafood, shift,
   sleight, smoked herring, stratagem, strategy, subterfuge, tactic,
   trick, trickery, wile, wily device