The maverick Republican recommended that Durbin read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago," saying that would give him "a better understanding that there's no comparison whatsoever."

McCain said that Durbin had done "a great disservice to the majority of men and women who are serving in Guantanamo who are doing the job that they're told to do and they're doing it in a humane fashion."

Durbin's latest comments on the flap - to the St. Louis Post Dispatch on Friday - indicated he had no intention of apologizing.

"It's not that my remarks were wrong or that there's any need for apology," he told the paper. Durbin instead blamed the "right wing" for twisting his comments.

But McCain - who's more popular with Democrats than with Republicans - predicted that the Illinois Democrat would eventually be forced to back down.

"I predict to you that by the time this program is shown next Sunday that Mr. Durbin will have apologized," he told "Meet the Press."

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