Tom Cable’s weekly Monday press conference was over by 2:30 p.m. today. It took the Raiders about 90 minutes to create a lurid little sideshow out front of the Cable circus tent.

Cable, not surprisingly, largely refused to answer questions regarding Sunday’s report on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” that he is a serial domestic abuser. Mostly he stuck to the “I issued a statement yesterday” defense, leaving many pertinent questions unanswered.

Cable’s refusal to speak wound up looking proper, even valiant, by the end of the Randy Hanson fiasco. Maybe it will eventually seem like the right thing to do in this latest fiasco, but he might have helped his cause in the short term by at least acknowledging the gravity of violence against women.

Anyway, it is reasonable for the Raiders to jump into the fray and deflect some of the attention from their beleaguered coach.
But of course, they did it in typically sensational Raiders fashion.

At 4:01 p.m., I got an e-mail in my in-box with the following announcement:

“Over the last few days, we learned of the allegations made against Coach Cable and we are, of course, aware of his response thereto. In conjunction with the League office, we will undertake a serious evaluation of this matter.

“We wish to be clear that we do not in any way condone or accept actions such as those alleged.

“There have been occasions on which we have dismissed Raider employees for having engaged in inappropriate conduct. For reasons of privacy, we kept the basis for those dismissals confidential. We endured public opprobrium for the dismissals, all the while knowing our basis for them was appropriate.”

The first two paragraphs are spot-on, exactly what any corporate PR staff should disseminate under the circumstances. But the third is wacky. Instead of trying to quiet the controversy, it only opens a giant can of worms.

Who are these inappropriate “Raider employees”? Did Joe Bugel drink champagne and dance naked on the practice field? Did Norv Turner pee in the snow outside the Broncos’ offices during that trip to Denver in 2004? Every dismissed Raider now falls under a cloud of suspicion.

I was still digesting that message at 4:03 when in came another missive:

“ESPN’s role in this matter must be carefully examined. ESPN routinely disseminates falsehoods about the Raiders. During the last year, ESPN (working with someone who was in this organization) engaged in a calculated effort to distort the truth about the Raiders, utilizing lies and innuendo.”

OK, ESPN certainly isn’t the most distinguished news agency in the land, and the network does seem to have gone out of its way to hammer the Raiders in recent years. And the “someone who was in this organization,” Lane Kiffin, had a mighty axe to grind.

But when will Al Davis learn that it isn’t in his interest to go around calling people “a professional liar,” as he labeled ESPN’s Chris Mortensen last year? That sometimes the most dignified response is no response?

Once again, the Raiders have raced to the scene of a fire, and addressed the emergency with several hundred gallons of gasoline.