Mail: Set Text color, not background color

Hi, is there any way to set the text color of the messages in the inbox like you can do it via rule?

What i want to do is to trigger an applescript that sets the text color of a selected mail, so i can mark it as private, business a or business b etc. Setting the background color makes my inbox look like a colorful mess. As these mails can’t be identified by rules, i have to do it manually. In 10.5 i used “Mail Act!on” for that purpose, but it doesn’t work in 10.6.

TIA