For a black man with a slim lead in the race for the Republican nomination for president and embattled by allegations of sexual impropriety, Herman Cain is coasting on easy street.

Because of Cain's high-profile defenders in the Republican Party, at least in part, sexual harassment allegations from four different women are sliding off the former Godfather's Pizza CEO like he's made of Teflon.

Republicans, led by conservative commentator Ann Coulter, have tried to revive the same 20-year-old defense used to shield Clarence Thomas from the allegations of Anita Hill: that this is a high-tech lynching of a black man. Meanwhile, Hill just spoke at a conference in her honor, "Sex, Power, and Speaking Truth" -- timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Thomas confirmation hearings.

Two decades after those hearings, is history repeating itself? And is the overarching lesson here not that powerful men should keep their sexual comments and gestures to themselves but that women should beware of accusing a powerful man of harassing them?

On the defensive, Cain's campaign and supporters have, predictably enough, attacked the credibility of his accusers. Sharon Bialek, who claims that 20 years ago Cain put his hand up her skirt and tried to force her head toward his crotch after she asked him for help finding a job, is being vilified for her financial history, as if sexual harassers perform credit checks. Cain's campaign manager, Mark Block, wrongly stated that an accuser, Karen Kraushaar, was the mother of Josh Kraushaar, a former reporter for Politico, which broke the sexual harassment story.

Others are pointing to the long lapse in time between when the incidents happened and when they are now being reported. Despite how far we have come as a society in acknowledging that sexual harassment is a problem, there is still an immediate tendency toward skepticism that ends up discouraging woman from coming forward.