George Will: SOTU is a plot to change subject, but Obama can't hide his 'shrinkage'

Conservative columnist George Will on Sunday said that this year's State of the Union address was a plan to distract voters from President Barack Obama's failings.

During a Fox News Sunday panel discussion on the president's annual address to Congress, Will seemed pleased that the country would finally be able to see what he called the president's "shrinkage."

Host Chris Wallace asked Will how much of President Obama's State of the Union focus on income inequality "is just about the president trying to change the subject and trying to change the American people's attention from Obamacare and all the problems with that to the subject that worked so well for him in 2012, which was the middle class and building these ladders of opportunity?"

"It's a lot of changing the subject, but what kind of a ladder is he going to build?" Will wondered. "You know, in baseball, you play what's called small ball -- stealing bases, bunting -- when you can't do anything else. This is the miniaturization of the president's agenda."

"A 23rd increase in the minimum wage since 1938," Will scoffed. "It may be a good thing, a bad thing, but it's a marginal importance to the economy and of no importance to the middle class."

The columnist also asserted that the president was wasting his time pushing pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs.

"The shrinkage of the Obama presidency will be on display Tuesday night," Will concluded.

Watch this video from Fox's Fox News Sunday, broadcast Jan. 26, 2013.