McCain commits unprecedented stop in a supermarket to (comment) surge

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080724/ap_on_el_pr/mccain;_ylt=Aod6.tBOFRopEvuvlVIOm2as0NUE

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Republican John McCain pushed back on Wednesday against Democratic criticism that he misstated when the troop buildup ordered by President Bush began, saying elements were put in place before Bush announced the strategy in early 2007.
He told reporters during an unscheduled stop in a super market that, what the Bush administration calls "the surge" was actually "made up of a number of components," some of which began before the president's order for more troops.
It's all a matter of semantics, he suggested.
McCain said Army Col. Sean MacFarland started carrying out elements of a new counterinsurgency strategy as early as December 2006.
At issue are McCain's comments in a Tuesday interview with CBS. The Arizona senator disputed Democrat Barack Obama's contention that a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida combined with the dispatch of thousands more U.S. combat troops to Iraq to produce the improved security situation there. McCain called that a "false depiction."