Commentary In a typically masterful essay from 50 years ago, the great British journalist and social critic Malcolm Muggeridge observed that nothing is more pathetic to watch than a ruling class on the run. If Muggeridge and his gimlet eye were with us today, however, even he might feel obliged to revise his take on just how low our current political, social, and corporate leaders can go in abasing themselves. Take, for example, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank begging pardon from the Communist Party of China for making a joke about how long it will last. Or the CEO of McDonald’s publicly grovelling for offering a private opinion that criminals with bounties on their heads might not be the best parental role models. On both occasions, heads of multi-billion-dollar organizations offered obsequious mea culpas to a gangster government and a gangster of the street respectively. Does it get …