Perhaps you’ve noticed an abundance of “Top Ten” lists in recent weeks. As usual, the mainstream media has churned out a variety of year-in-review pieces of late. Two events vied for top billing on all those lists – the financial meltdown and the presidential election. At present, it isn’t clear which of those debacles presents the greater threat to our nation.

The factors leading up to the economic collapse in the last two quarters are clear (see Economics 101). What is not clear, however, is whether we can limit the damage to a mere recession.

On the other hand, we have learned that Barack Hussein Obama (as he prefers to be named for his oath of office) is a charismatic master of deception and deflection. What we haven’t learned, therefore, are the answers to a plethora of questions about his citizenship, his mentors, his faith, his worldview, and his tragic childhood – a childhood which gave rise to the pathological narcissism that launched his political career and guides him to this day.

Not that many of those questions weren’t asked. Plenty of them were posed in our profiles of Obama but were met with obfuscation, prevarication and equivocation.

So, who is this guy?

In one sense he answered that question in his political autobiography, “The Audacity of Hope”: “I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

That explains who he is in the glassy eyes of his messianic following, but who is he really? Who is Barack Hussein Obama, the president-elect of the United States of America?

In pursuit of an answer, I have compiled a list of some important questions directed at BHO that he did not answer in 2008.

Where to start … how about the beginning: Are you a natural-born citizen, as constitutionally prescribed in Article II, Section 1 and Amendment XX, Section 3, for the office of president?

When the question of citizenship came up a year ago, I presumed that this issue was a “straw man” – that your strategy was to send some adversaries on a rabbit trail to nowhere, only to release your official birth certificate just prior to the election. But you didn’t do that.

I believe that you were born in Honolulu, but after inquiring at the hospital where you say you were born, they could not produce any birth records or tell me who the attending OB might have been. Of course, 1961 is many years past.

What you are passing off as a “birth certificate” is actually nothing more than a “certificate of live birth,” which, pursuant to Hawaii Land Statue 338.17.8, is available on request from any resident of Hawaii.

Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle has sealed your on-file birth records, making them unavailable for verification. You refuse to request that the documents in question be made available for examination by dispassionate analysts.

To obtain a driver’s license, one has to provide some proof of citizenship – so why did you not comply as a presidential candidate? Surely you can influence the state of Hawaii to release your original birth certificate for public inspection, so this lingering question can be put to rest before your inauguration.

We know that you hold constitutional rule of law in contempt, but in the unlikely event that it is revealed sometime after your inauguration that you are not a natural-born citizen, we would be faced with a serious constitutional crisis. When do you plan to release your original birth certificate?

Moving on, regarding your parents divorce early in your childhood and strained relationships as an adolescent (similar to that of Bill Clinton), do you think that being abandoned by your father resulted in a tendency for pathological narcissism?

After your parents divorced, you moved with your Islamic stepfather to Indonesia where you were educated in Muslim schools. How did that influence your religious views today?

In fifth grade, you were abandoned by your mother and stepfather, and returned to live with your grandparents in Hawaii. Of those years, you wrote, “The opportunity that Hawaii offered – to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect – became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear.” Do you consider yourself Hawaiian, American, or a citizen of the world?

You indicated that your primary adolescent mentor was a devoted communist named Frank Marshall Davis. How did his mentorship shape your understanding of the role of government and economics?

When you turned 18 years of age, did you register with the Selective Service System as required by law?

When you traveled to Pakistan in 1982, what was the nationality of your passport? Pakistan did not admit American citizens at that time.

When you went to Occidental College and later, Columbia University, did you register as an American student?

You claim that you never heard any of the anti-American and black-supremacist rants of your mentoring pastor, Jeremiah Wright. However, you spent 20 years in Wright’s church, he officiated at your marriage and the baptism of your children, and you identified him as a “father” figure.

Is it possible that you have been so steeped in his racist rhetoric and hatred for America that you failed to recognize it for what it was?

In 2002, The University of Chicago Medical center hired Michelle Obama to run “programs for community relations, neighborhood outreach, volunteer recruitment, staff diversity and minority contracting,” and paid her $120,000. In 2005, after you were elected to the U.S. Senate, the hospital raised her salary to $317,000. The next year, before launching your presidential campaign, you arranged a $1 million earmark for the UC Medical Center. Shortly thereafter, Michelle resigned her post to help with your campaign, and the UC Medical Center eliminated her position.

Do you know what Quid Pro Quo means?

You claim that terrorist William Ayers was “just a guy in my neighborhood,” and that you were “just eight years old when he was a terrorist.” However, you were 34 when Ayers used his radical celebrity to launch your political career from his living room. You were 40 when this unrepentant terrorist was featured in a New York Times article (on the morning of September 11, 2001) and quoted in the opening paragraph proclaiming, “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Ayers added, “America makes me want to puke.” You were working on your second major “philanthropic” project with Ayers at that time, and when interviewed for your first Senate run, you claimed that your primary qualification for public office was your role with the ultra-Leftist Annenberg Foundation – an appointment that you received from Ayers.

So, what is the real nature of your relationship with Ayers?

Regarding your “realtor” friend Tony Rezko, how do the unusual circumstances surrounding the purchase of your Chicago mansion differ from the purchase made by former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) of his California house – a purchase that ended with his arrest and conviction?

Regarding your ties to the Socialist New Party, the ACORN crowd, Rod Blagojevich, Richard Daley, Saul Alinsky, Father Michael Pfleger, Khalid al-Mansour, Kwame Kilpatrick, Louis Farrakhan, Rashid Khalidi, Raila Odinga and other haters, hard Leftists and convicted felons, are we to assume these were just “guys in your neighborhood”?

If you were a Civil Service Employee, could you pass a background check to receive a basic “Secret” clearance? If not, why should the American people trust you as the steward of their security? (OK, I know the answer. “No.”)

George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” All committed Socialists understand this principle. In 100 words or less, can you compare and contrast Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations with Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto? In 50 words or less, can you describe any significant difference between International Communism and National Socialism?

Whom do you hold accountable for the economic fiasco, and what is your plan to ensure it doesn’t recur? What is your plan to halt the imminent inflation resulting from the Fed’s printing of money to fund TARP and all the additional handouts?

Why do you think government can provide better and more efficient health care than the private sector? Keep in mind, yours is the same party that was regulating the housing market when it became the first economic domino to fall.

Can you explain how excessively taxing large corporations (which, in turn, pass these “fees” on to the consumer) provides economic “stimulus,” or how this makes lower- and middle-income Americans wealthier?

The motto of your campaign was “change,” but you have never specified what that change means – change from what to what? Based on the goals you have spoken about, it appears that you (and your handlers) would like to change our country from a Constitutional republic to a socialist/Marxist one. Would you please disabuse me of this notion?

You campaigned about needing “new blood” in Washington. Given this, how do you explain your selection of so many people from the Clinton and Carter administrations?

Our national debt stands at $10 trillion, and rises at a rate of roughly $75 million per hour each day. Do you see any problem with such large numbers, and if so, do you have a plan to fix it?

What is your plan to rein in congressional spending?

Define “rich.” As in “taxing the rich.” The amount appears to have varied depending upon which speech you and Joe Biden made during the campaign. $250,000? $200,000? $150,000? None of these pre-income tax amounts would qualify anyone as being rich, and yet, you voted to increase taxes on the “rich” at the $40,000 level.

During Bill Clinton’s administration, he raised taxes and government revenue collections decreased. George W. Bush reduced taxes and revenue collections increased. Why?

What yardstick will you use to determine when our troops should return home from OIF and/or OEF? How will you measure success? Given that the surge strategy in Iraq has, without question, worked, why is it that you cannot simply admit you were wrong?

What is it about leaders of states who sponsor terrorism and harbor terrorists that makes you believe peace is negotiable with them? What makes you think that Iran, Syria and terrorist entities such as Hamas, Fatah and Hezbollah will adhere to anything they might “agree” to in a signed document?

What is your position on amnesty for illegal immigrants? What is your vision for immigration reform, generally?

Vice president-elect Joe Biden said, “Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama. … Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he’s gonna need help. … He’s gonna need you … to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

What in heaven’s name was he ranting about?

In regard to your so-called “National Service Plan” you stated, “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded [as the military].” That sounds like a force of like-minded socialists, young pioneers, brown shirts, Obama youth, ready to trade brooms for guns.

What were you talking about?

On the subject of guns, you said of the Second Amendment (the palladium of all other rights), “I believe in the Second Amendment. Lawful gun owners have nothing to fear. I said that throughout the campaign. I haven’t indicated anything different during the transition. I think people can take me at my word.” However, your nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, reaffirmed in the recent Heller case his long-held position that the Second Amendment confers no rights of individual gun possession by private citizens.

Can we still take you at your word?

What is your position on the Enumerated Powers Act (H.R. 1359), which would require all legislation introduced in Congress to “contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority” empowering Congress to enact it?

And on the subject of constitutional authority, on 20 January, you will be taking this constitutionally prescribed oath: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Exactly what Constitution are you swearing to “preserve, protect and defend” – that which was written by our forefathers and defended by the blood of Patriots for generations since, or its vestigial remains, the so-called “Living Constitution” as amended by Leftist judicial diktat? After all, you said you would nominate Supreme Court Justices who met your ideological test rather than those who were impartial jurists.

If the latter, should anyone take your role as commander in chief seriously?

For your inauguration, you selected a conservative Christian pastor, Rick Warren, to deliver the prayer. After a storm of complaints from your various constituencies that Warren supports marriage as “between a man and a woman,” you then called on homosexual Episcopal Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson to give the invocation at the inaugural opening ceremony. What does this say about your penchant to look like all things to all people?

And a final question: At a Florida rally four days before the presidential election, you asserted: “[W]e want to do this, change our tax code (a.k.a. ‘redistribute the wealth’). … John McCain [calls] this socialistic. You know I, I, I don’t know when, when, uh, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness.”

For the record, when you were an adolescent (by your own account, smoking dope and snorting coke) John McCain was a POW in Hanoi. Despite being a Naval Academy graduate and the son of a high-ranking admiral, McCain had requested combat duty and was assigned to the USS Forrestal. He was on the flight deck of the Forrestal during the inferno that killed 134 of his fellow sailors. He was flying his 23rd mission as part of Operation Rolling Thunder over Vietnam when his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a missile over Hanoi. He was subjected to more than five years of horrific torture by the Communist NVA, including two years of solitary confinement.

You claim that John McCain has made “a virtue out of selfishness.” When will you issue a public apology for that odious remark?