Spry Menu problem in IE8 only

Hello all -

Thanks for having this kind of forum for amateur websters...

I have created a Spry Menu bar using Dreamweaver CS4. It looks great in Safari but Internet Explorer somehow gives the "ul.menubarhorizontal a" style a white background color. I've tried to brave the HTML code and added the code "background color=none" but it doesn't change things. Everything else about the menu bar is fine, just the addition of the background color when I need it to be clear to show the background photo through the "buttons."

Any ideas out there?

Thanks again!

- Scott