Bush Country

Record casualties in Iraq?

Check.

A mass exodus of cabinet members?

Check.

Another month of crappy job creation numbers?

Check.

A surprisingly soft 112,000 new U.S. jobs were created in November, the Labor Department said on Friday, casting a shadow across an already downbeat holiday sales season with consumers apparently worried by scarce work and high oil prices.

The November figure -- the weakest since July -- came in well below Wall Street economists' forecasts for 180,000 new jobs, though the unemployment rate eased to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent in October.

In a further sign the labor market is improving only slowly, the Labor Department lowered its estimates for job growth in both September and October.

October's gain was marked down to 303,000 from an originally reported 337,000-job increase. The department cut September's total to 119,000 from 139,000.

The battered U.S. dollar came under renewed pressure immediately after the jobs data, losing more ground against the euro.