HTML formatting not showing up in dynamic text

programming flash
1

I have a dynamic text box with this code associated with it:

aText.htmlText = "";
aText.htmlText += "<b><a href = " + aRSSLinks* + ">";
aText.htmlText += aRSSTitles* + "</a></b><br />";
aText.htmlText += aRSSDescriptions* + "<br />";

The text comes up, but is not formatted as bold or linked. When I trace(aText.htmlText); there are a bunch of random <TEXTFORMAT>, <P>, and <FONT> tags, but not the <b>,<a>, and <br> tags.

Any ideas? Thanks.