The congressional Republicans and the conservative entertainment complex has lost its collective shpadoinkle over President Obama's slate of new executive orders, including a forthcoming order to raise the minimum wage for government contractors to $10.10.

Consequently, Glenn Beck declared the president to be "America's first dictator." Mark Levin suggested that Congress pass a resolution nullifying the executive orders, as if the president would ever sign such legislation.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) played the newly popular frivolous lawsuit card, and declared that House conservatives might try to sue the president. Bachmann said, "He may think he's a king, he may declare himself king, but that's not what he is under our Constitution."

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tweeted, "Mr. President we are a nation of laws & we are supposed to follow our #Constitution. You do not get to 'act alone.'"

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, "Over and over again this president has disregarded the law, has disregarded the Constitution and has asserted presidential power that simply doesn't exist and that ought to worry regardless of whether you agree with his policies or not."

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) literally got up and walked out of the State of the Union address like Gary Oldman's Shelly Runyon in The Contender, declaring, "I could not bear to watch as he continued to cross the clearly-defined boundaries of the Constitutional separation of powers."

Harsh.

To repeat what we covered yesterday: President Obama has only signed 168 executive orders so far. This compares to 291 executive orders signed by the previous president. In fact, George W. Bush signed more orders in his first four years, 173, than President Obama has signed in just over five.

But that only tells part of the story. What about the content of the orders? Let's review.

OBAMA: December 23, 2013. Obama signed an order titled, "Adjustments of Certain Rates of Pay."

BUSH: December 18, 2008. Bush also signed an order titled, "Adjustments of Certain Rates of Pay."

What about orders that make adjustments to the implementation of established laws? Here's a few Bush executive orders along those lines:

And what about Bush's executive orders with regards to federal contractor pay and employment?

I think you get the point. So not only are many of the executive orders similar in terms of what they address, but the previous president and nearly all previous presidents since Grover Cleveland have signed many more orders than the current so-called "dictator."

It's ridiculous that we have to point this out, but executive orders have always been a significant aspect of the executive for nearly 150 years when orders began to number in the hundreds per president. But again, as with the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, so much of what the Republican leadership and their flacks in talk radio inject into the debate depends entirely upon the short attention span of the American public.