Senator Dick Durbin apparently got told to stay on message and refuse to back down: Defiant Durbin: No Apology Necessary.

“It’s not that my remarks were wrong or that there’s any need for apology,” Durbin told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Friday. “It’s the fact that [my critics] have successfully twisted them out of context.”

Durbin blamed conservatives for his troubles, saying that he refused to be “intimidated by the right-wing message machine.”

“If I’m going to back off every time they decide they’re unhappy with my statements, then I really won’t be doing my job.”

Durbin vowed to pursue his investigation ... telling the paper: “We’re going to continue to follow this [and] demand that the administration be held accountable.”

These remarks are amazingly similar to the talking points spelled out in this ABC News report we noted yesterday, featuring Berkeley linguistics professor George Lakoff: ABC News Senses a Vast Inchoate Conspiracy.