Actually, I did get through eventually, but I couldn't figure out how to get Wolfram Alpha to give me a graph of the the national debt in dollars / GNP in inflation-adjusted (real) dollars over time.
I'm sure it will be a Very Cool tool once I get the hang of it.
I asked “Who is number one?” and I was disappointed not to get the answer “You are number six”. But it does seem to have great potential as a research tool.