Tab Challenge in IE!

I'm having a problem with CSS in IE8. I'm designing a page in C# that I want to have tabs, and found a template that I made compatible with ASP.NET (albeit a bit messily). I need this to look good in Firefox 3, IE8, and Safari, and while it looks great in FF3 and Safari, IE8 is having some problems. Is there a quick hack to make it IE quality that anyone can figure out? I've been trying for awhile but I'm stumped...

The HTML/ASP.NET is (without front angle brackets so it shows here):

div id="tabbar">
ul>
asp:Panel ID="Panel1" runat="server" CssClass="tabitemLSel">a>asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton1" OnClick="ChangeView" CssClass="tabitemRSel" runat="server" Text="Live Questions" />/a>/asp:Panel>
asp:Panel ID="Panel2" runat="server" CssClass="tabitemL">a>asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton2" OnClick="ChangeView" CssClass="tabitemR" runat="server" Text="Ask a Question" />/a>/asp:Panel>
asp:Panel ID="Panel3" runat="server" CssClass="tabitemL">a>asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton3" OnClick="ChangeView" CssClass="tabitemR" runat="server" Text="Answered Questions" />/a>/asp:Panel>
/ul>
/div>

and the CSS is:

#tabbar {
float:left;
width:100%;
/*background:#DAE0D2 url("bg.gif") repeat-x bottom;*/
background: url("bg2.gif") repeat-x bottom;
font-size:14px;
line-height:normal;
}

#tabbar ul
{
padding:10px 10px 0;
list-style:none;
}

#tabbar a:hover {
color:#333;
}

.tabitemL {
float:left;
background:url("left.gif") no-repeat left top;
margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;
padding:0px 0px 0px 9px;
}

.tabitemR {
float:left;
display:block;
background:url("right.gif") no-repeat right top;
padding:5px 15px 4px 6px;
text-decoration:none;
font-weight:bold;
color:#765;
}

.tabitemLSel {
float:left;
background:url("left_on.gif") no-repeat left top;
margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;
padding:0px 0px 0px 9px;
border-bottom: solid 1px white;
}

.tabitemRSel {
float:left;
display:block;
background:url("right_on.gif") no-repeat right top;
padding:5px 15px 4px 6px;
text-decoration:none;
font-weight:bold;
color: #333;
}