Padding on block-display links in IE and IE-specific stylesheets

Hi all,

My problems are actually two different but related ones:

My original problem is that I'm trying to make a simple menu for a site out of an unordered list and some links. It looks right in compliant browsers, but in IE, the vertical padding on my links doesn't take at all.

You can see an example of what I mean here, check the difference between a compliant browser and IE: nassau.se / inspectit (had to break the URL for the forum to let me post, you know what to do)

And of course, the requisite code:

#wrapper #head #menuBar {
	background:white;
	width:678px;
	position:absolute;
	bottom:47px;
	z-index:1;
	min-height:26px;
}
#wrapper #head #menuBar ul {
	margin-left:105px;
	margin-top:6px;
}
#wrapper #head #menuBar ul li {
	display:inline;
	float:left;
}
#wrapper #head #menuBar ul li a:link {
	display:block;
	padding:6px 7px;
	color:black;
	text-decoration:none;	
}
#wrapper #head #menuBar ul li a:visited {
	color:black;
	text-decoration:none;
	padding:6px 7px;
}
#wrapper #head #menuBar ul li a:hover {
	color:white;
	background:#666666;	
	padding:6px 7px;
}
#wrapper #head #menuBar ul li a:active {
	color:white;
	text-decoration:none;
	padding:6px 7px;
}

Code (markup):

A related issue I'm having is that I've made a copy of the above code and placed it in a stylesheet inside a conditional comment, but I've found that only some of the changes I make to that stylesheet take, such as changing the background color of #menuBar, while trying to change the padding of the same has no effect.

Thanks in advance!