TUNKU VARADARAJAN: Why Obama’s Immigration Speech Was A Failure. “When a president recites Emma Lazarus in a speech on immigration—and recites not merely a fragment or two but virtually the entire length of ‘the New Colossus’—one is inclined to conclude that his speech was written by someone who has just graduated from high school and has a young head brimming with social studies. This being President Obama, however, one can conclude that he will have written a fair portion of the speech himself, and, in so concluding, one would be struck forcefully by how banal the speech was.”