IDE :: Forcing Setfocus On A Text Area?

I'm dealing with an inline hyperlink in a textarea filled with htmlText. I'm getting incredibly vexxed by this problem with having to click the link twice.I have learned here that this is because the first time a link is clicked, the text area receives focus. Then links become activated. The workaround for this, according to the article, is:

solve this by setting mouseOver = textFieldID.setFocus();

I really wish he'd set this in context, because no variant I've tried works.

Code:
mouseOver=showText.setFocus();
and

Code:
showSlice.mouseOver=showText.setFocus();

cause the link not to work at all. showSlice is the movie clip containing the textfield, which is called showText.This isn't as bad, but you still have to click the link twice (because I don't think this is doing anything at all):

Code:
showSlice.onRollOver=function() {
showText.setFocus();
};

It's a dynamically created textfield, and I am using AS2 in Flash 8. Code in full for this textarea is here:

Code:
var showText:TextField=showSlice.createTextField(instanceName="showText", castMems, castX, castDrop, castWidth, 100);
showText.embedFonts=true;
showText.multiline=true;
showText.setStyle("backgroundColor", "transparent");

[code]...