Chancellor Weaver's ruling makes it clear that there were massive systemic failures at every juncture of the Knox County charter process: inception, preparation, filing, administration.  Had the charter been properly written and filed, or had someone been diligent and caught the errors and fixed them in an appropriate manner, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today.

So who's responsible for this?  (More after the jump.) 

It might be easier to identify who isn't responsible, but I'd like to open the floor for nominations to the Knox County Cavalcade of Incompetents.  In my view, anyone who had any role in drafting, reviewing, preparing, (non-)filing, overseeing, administering, or enforcing the County Charter would be well served to 'fess up now to their errors.  Broadly, that would be anyone on the charter's drafting commission, the County Commission, and anyone who has held any County office of any responsibility since the Charter came to life. 

I'd love to hear some specific names, though.  It's time for the blame game, because mistakes of this magnitude should have genuinely adverse consequences for those responsible. 

If you can't even create your government properly, you're not fit to govern.  The manifest and sustained incompetence of our elected leaders is the second-best argument for term limits; the best argument, of course, being that the people voted for them, expected to get them, and can be expected to vote for them earnestly again.