Though he would never admit it, Henry Rollins is a man who needs little introduction. During the past two-and-a-half years, the punk rocker turned author, speaker, poet, actor and TV host has been on the road bringing his unique art and brutally honest opinions to audiences worldwide.

The end of September marks the beginning of his “25 Years of Bullshit” speaking tour. Simply named, he says it’s because it needed a name, and the tour is basically a chance to catch up with audiences across the country that he hasn’t seen in two years. Rollins had returned from Egypt only 10 hours before he spoke to the Daily about his opinions on his film show, the closing of CBGB and the president’s vacation habits.

Dante Sacomani: You just returned to America from doing a USO show in Egypt, something you’ve been doing a lot lately. How is the transition to returning to America?

Henry Rollins: One of the strangest jump cuts you will ever make in your life is to go see a place like Cairo or Calcutta and come back to, well, America — but to come back to Hollywood, Calif. You know, all that Hollywood thing, it’s pretty mind-blowing. It just doesn’t make sense. You’re like, ‘God, this picture is so wrong.’

And so I’m very well aware of that every time I return here because it’s one hell of a juxtaposition to be in Calcutta where everyone is, you know, pretty broke and then 40 hours later with layovers, you’re driving down Hollywood Boulevard where even the homeless ladies have augmentations.

DS: So tell me a little bit about what you do on these USO trips.

HR: Well, you go from base to base, and usually the visits are between 60 or 90 minutes depending on what the thing is. Sometimes you just have a meal at the base and as many soldiers as they can will get around and just hang out with you. It’s called a handshake tour — you’re not really performing, you’re just being that guy they recognize. They have a lot of questions like, ‘Hey man, what was it like being in Jackass?’ and you tell ’em the story. And while I have huge disagreements with George W. Bush and the way he’s running my wonderful country, I don’t have a problem with the troops. So I’m anti-Bush but pro-troops in that they are people doing a job.

DS: How do you respond to the argument that to support the troops, you have to support Bush?

HR: I think that’s just idiotic. I think Bush is using the troops in a very unwise manner. Like Iraq — it’s just bad. Well, he’s doing it for a reason that he hasn’t felt the need to disclose to America. Many of us have theories and probably they’re right.

If he thinks he’s going after al-Qaida and the Taliban and the terrorists by going to Iraq, please stop it. Come on, no one believes you. Not even the people who voted for you believe you any more; look at the approval ratings and they plummet.

So that’s that FOX News mentality, that conservatives and Republicans have an exclusive hold on patriotism, that it’s only theirs and anyone who would be in any way questioning the White House and their agenda is some commie, pinko un-American. And so liberals and Democrats have to come in with, ‘I love America, but I disagree with the president,’ they have to leave it at an upper case. Because there’s so many Sean Hannity-types going, ‘If only you loved America …’

No. I love the soldiers and Iraq is just bad strategy. You went on faulty intelligence, you got busted for it. You lied right down the barrel of the lens — we all know, so stop it already.

How this guy could go on vacation one day with, like, 1,800-plus casualties — not to mention the horrific rate of injury. And I go to the hospitals over there … I hang out with these guys and you know, faces gone, arms gone, legs gone, spleens gone and they’re half my age — it’s beyond heartbreaking. You just walk out of there stunned.

Then the fact that this guy goes on vacation and dances with his wife in a ball gown on a carpet, you know, you motherfucker, get to work. It took a flood and a bunch of nonwhites dying and getting left to hang out there. It took that to get him to come back to work.

DS: You’ve done six USO shows now and have seen some things firsthand. When you come back and turn on CNN, which is almost our only exposure, do you think the war is being covered well?

HR: I don’t think there’s some kind of weird press blackout on things that we’re not getting to see. I do think for some reason the press really do fear the Bush administration. They let people like Karl Rove and Rumsfeld and Cheney just get away with shit. Like that whole Karl Rove, [Valerie] Plame thing — it just went away. It just goes away.

That bastard just smiled the whole time cause he knows the press fear the Bush family, they fear the whole family and the Bush party just does what it wants. They’re never held accountable like you would be held accountable for your actions or I would be held accountable and that annoys me. There is probably a lot of that going on in this war we’re not privy to. There’s no exit strategy for this thing … you’re never going to walk into a place like Afghanistan or Iraq and say, ‘Here’s how it’s gonna be,’ and have anyone go, ‘Oh, OK, we’ll just stop what we’ve been doing for the past 2,000 years and do it your way.’ No way.

DS: You mentioned that you think the media have a fear of the Bush administration. What do you think the administration has done to cause this fear?

HR: I think journalists own so much stock in Halliburton, they’d be pissing in their own coffee cup just by doing their jobs, laying into the guy.

I think there’s a bigger fear — just fear of losing a job. Or maybe their superiors go to them and just say, ‘Look, they’re doing some pretty kinky stuff, but you’re just not reporting on that this year.’

Maybe they say, ‘Isn’t that our job?’ and they’re told, ‘Your job is to shut up and file the report we tell you to file.’ Dan Rather I think got set up; it’s a little conspiracy theory. But the president did in fact get out of his Vietnam obligation by getting scanned into the Texas Air National Guard. Dan Rather, I think, was fed faulty info so he could get hung on it and the thing really goes away.

It’s obvious — the guy’s a rich kid. I went to school with kids like George W. Bush in prep school and they just never really have to hold down a job or be that responsible, and they got excused because they’re privileged.

The arrogance of the Bush administration. … Last year during the 9/11 commission hearings he did, like, his fourth-ever press conference in, like, five years and they said, ‘Mr. President, how come you and Dick Cheney are going to be doing your testimony together?’ And the president said, ‘Well, because the 9/11 commission has a lot of questions they want us to answer and we look forward to answering them.’

And they said, ‘No, sir that’s not my question. Everyone else has testified alone and you’re going with Dick Cheney. How come you’re doing this with him and not alone?’

And he said, ‘Because there’s a lot of questions they want to ask us and we’re really looking forward to answering them.’

And the guy just kind of smiled and gave up. Bush was obviously not going to answer the question. If Clinton had been that crass, Ann Coulter’s clitoris would have exploded.

Why does the president get to just not answer? Why are you going on vacation in Texas? If I was the president, I’d go on vacation in my back yard; I wouldn’t leave — you’re the president, man. Especially with that “war.”

I’d take a weekend, but five weeks? You’re elected to the highest office this country offers; you have to be the right-stuff guy. You have to be that guy who worked too much. And it should probably take a few years off your life. You should die about three years too young if you were the president.

DS: You definitely seem very informed about all this, and Americans have a reputation for not being the most informed. Do you think with a little knowledge, people would see right through this?

HR: No, I think you need a lot more than just a little knowledge, and I think a lot of the people voted for Bush because a lot of them have a very challenging life.

They get up at 6:30 to three kids who are very hungry and they have a Subaru and crap jobs.

They don’t have time to read the big books or watch a documentary or listen to intellectual scholars and people go back and forth. They get their news from 40-second bites from a Sean Hannity-type on the way to work. They like stuff that’s self congratulatory: ‘Hey, working man — you’re doing great and everything is going great.’ That’s what you want to hear when you work at Wal-Mart. You’re saving up for that washing machine and your kids need braces.

Have you ever watched FOX News whenever they get the sacrificial liberal on there who tries to make a point that’s longer than 30 seconds? They start fading up that guitar music and Sean Hannity goes, ‘OK, we have got the commie off the air and go on to an ad.’ The conservative guys are able to sum stuff up in 30 seconds — ‘This is good, these people suck and we’ll be right back.’ I think a lot of people get their news that way.

DS: Now you’re about to start the new season of “Henry’s Film Corner” on IFC. How have you enjoyed working on it?

HR: Overall, the year was good. I think the interviews got better as I got better at interviewing people. I think we’re very lucky to get some interesting guests.

The people at IFC, they really like me and I like them too, but they really want to let me do my thing, which is a first. They’ve never told me what to do. All those things you hear me say, like when I’m ripping the president a new one or whatever, none of that’s ever been changed.

The show you see is never touched by IFC — we sent that to them and they write back and say, ‘We love the new show, can’t wait for the next one,’ which is impossible for TV, usually. ‘OK, we liked it, but…” and then they ask you to change everything.

The meaner I am, the more they love it. So that’s been encouraging. The fact that I go without really having to check myself and they say, ‘Yay, let’s have another. That’s a first for me. Now they want to up the ante … the show I think was good. Good enough to where I got a lot of wonderful mail. People really liked it; their only complaint was, well, I got a few people who love the president, so they’re mad at me. Hey, that’s democracy.

DS: I’ve been reading about the closing of CBGB. Have you been following that at all?

HR: One of my favorite CBs stories: I saw the Dictators play one night, sort of a local New York band. It was me and Joey Ramone standing on the side of the stage watching. I just had this great night hanging out with Joey, who was a really nice guy, but it was just so much fun to just kind of have this cool moment of hanging out with Joey without having a whole bunch of people going, ‘Joey, Joey,’ and after the show was over, he and I just kind of lurched in the back area.

It was just a great night at CBs — a midnight show on a Tuesday night in, like, February. It was, you know, like, 90 below and there was, like, 80 people there and the show was awesome. It was a great night with Joey and some great rock ’n’ roll, and those are the things you take with you.