Republican House Speaker John Boehner is a white man who, for years, has been the butt of jokes in Washington for having a remarkably dark skin color. It almost glows.
President Obama — whose mother was white and father black — has even made jokes about Boehner’s skin tone. But the New York Times just took it a step further.
First Draft on Politics — the Times’ daily political newsletter with summaries of the day’s stories and some small, original reports — published an analysis Friday attempting to identify Boehner’s skin color using the Sherwin Williams paint color chart.
“Yes, his tan, which has been much commented on, is a hue we at First Draft have rarely seen,” the report said. “So we decided to investigate.”
The Times called Boehner’s color “a very deep winter-recess tan burnished at his new condominium in Marco Island, Fla.,” and proceeded to compare it to colors mixed by paint producer Sherwin Williams: “[T]he Color Visualizer found us the closest matches: ‘Spicy Hue’ and ‘Husky Orange’ …”
Though the Times piece appears to be entirely good-natured, it’s worth considering how the analysis would be received had Boehner’s name been replaced with Obama’s.
Surely, Obama had a tan coming back from his recent 17-day stay in Hawaii. Perhaps it’s a hue that could even be found on Sherwin Williams’ Color Visualizer.
Carl Hulse, chief Washington correspondent for the Times, said the comparison isn’t the same.
“No, that’s not the same,” Hulse told the Washington Examiner media desk. Asked to explain, he said, “It just isn’t.”
