Index: src/wp-includes/default-widgets.php
===================================================================
--- src/wp-includes/default-widgets.php	(revision 26844)
+++ src/wp-includes/default-widgets.php	(working copy)
@@ -866,7 +866,9 @@
 		if ( empty($title) )
 			$title = __('Untitled');
 
-		$desc = str_replace( array("\n", "\r"), ' ', esc_attr( strip_tags( @html_entity_decode( $item->get_description(), ENT_QUOTES, get_option('blog_charset') ) ) ) );
+		$desc = @html_entity_decode( $item->get_description(), ENT_QUOTES, get_option( 'blog_charset' ) );
+		$desc = esc_attr( strip_tags( $desc ) );
+		$desc = trim( str_replace( array( "\n", "\r" ), ' ', $desc ) );
 		$excerpt = wp_html_excerpt( $desc, 360 );
 
 		// Append ellipsis. Change existing [...] to […].