Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004, appeared last night on HBO’s Bill Maher Show.

“We are in the midst of recovering right now from a constitutional crisis where you had the executive trump the other branches of government,” Eaton said. “Thank god” Congress changed hands in November, he said, giving us “a chance to unsort and figure out how to get out from under this.”

Eaton lamented that so many service members believe that conservatives “are good for the military.” “That is rarely the case. And we have got to get a message through to every soldier, every family member, every friend of soldier,” that the Bush administration and its allies in Congress have “absolutely been the worst thing that’s happened to the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps.” Watch it:

One year ago this week, Eaton called for the resignation of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a New York Times op-ed. Vanity Fair has a new article checking in on Eaton now:

His new business cards say “consultant,” primarily because he doesn’t know what else he now is. Since he spoke out, several possible defense-related jobs have mysteriously dried up. ‘Maybe it’s the way I part my hair,’ he says. In late January, his elder son, a 29-year-old Arabic linguist who is an army specialist, went to Afghanistan. His younger son, 27, an army captain who has already spent 14 months in Iraq, will probably go back before long.

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On Tuesday, President Bush gave a speech claiming the Iraq escalation is showing “encouraging signs” of progress. But in today’s Washington Post, a senior Bush administration official acknowledges that “right now there is no trend” showing the escalation is working.

Moreover, officials say the information Bush presented to back up his rosy claims was skewed or flat-out false. A fact check:

President Bush: “General Petraeus recently arrived in the Iraqi capital, and the plan he is executing is in its early stages. … Yet even at this early hour, there are some encouraging signs.”

FACT: “Sectarian attacks in Baghdad are down at the moment, but the deaths of Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops have increased outside the capital. … If violence is down in Baghdad, analysts said, it is likely because the Shiite militias operating there are waiting out the buildup in U.S. troops, nearly all of whom are being deployed in the capital. At the same time, Sunni insurgents have escalated their operations elsewhere.”

President Bush: “Iraq’s Council of Ministers recently agreed on legislation they will submit to their parliament on the development of Iraq’s oil resources and the sharing of revenues.”

FACT: “Though Iraqi leaders have agreed on a new framework law for oil resources, the details of how the oil revenue will be divided among competing Iraqi groups remain unresolved.”

President Bush: “The Iraqi government has completed the deployment of three additional Iraqi Army brigades to the capital. They said they were going to employ three brigades, and they did.”

FACT: “A senior U.S. military official in Baghdad said this week that two Iraqi brigades and one battalion of a third have arrived in Baghdad.”

President Bush: “Iraqi and U.S. forces have rounded up more than 700 people affiliated with Shia extremists.”

FACT: “Bush’s report…appears to have little to do with the new strategy. The number is ‘based on captures…since July 2006,’ the military official said. Bush first reported the same roundup — citing 600 captures — last fall.”

On the same day President Bush gave his speech last week, suicide bombers and gunmen attacked Shiite religious pilgrims, “killing at least 130 people in one of the deadliest days of the four-year war.”