HTML in link titles in the base menu block

Is it possible to use HTML in the titles of links in the base menu 
block?  I need to italicize part of a link title.  I have hooked the 
HTML module to both the base module and the blocks module and have 
checked to make sure <em> is allowed. 

I also tried using the html transformoutput API function, like so...
<xar:set 
name="the_title">xarModAPIFunc('html','user','transformoutput',array('extrainfo' 
=> $item['title']))</xar:set>

But the <em> is still getting passed to the output like &lt;em&gt;

Thanks for your help.
Ryan


-- 
Ryan Walker
www.WebCommunicate.net:
Insights and resources for effective websites.