Retiring Democratic Senator Says Obama Erred By Tackling Health Care First

Sen. Byron Dorgan, who announced he would not seek re-election in November, said Friday that President Obama should have focused his first year in office on improving the economy instead of pursuing health care reform.

In an interview that will air Sunday on C-SPAN, the North Dakota Democrat said Obama made a mistake, not because health care isn't important but because the timing wasn't good.

"Standing in a very deep hole, it's hard to reach as high as you need to reach in order to put together a proposal that can get through the Congress," he said. "I personally would have said, let's work exclusively on restarting the economic engine once again and putting people back to work."

Dorgan's rebuke echoed comments made by fellow Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who also said this month that Obama should have focused on jobs first.

In his State of the Union address Wednesday night, Obama placed job creation at the center of his second-year agenda but vowed to keep pushing for health care reform. He acknowledged he fell short in explaining the merits of the legislation but didn't regret pursuing it.

But Dorgan, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, said creating jobs should have been the top priority for the president last year.

"My feeling is that, a year ago, the issue should have been all economy all the time and all about jobs all the time," Dorgan said. "While I think health care is very important -- it's a significant part of our economy -- I think what takes precedence over that is the American people seeing their government deciding job one is to try to repair this economy and put people back to work."