jquery select tag IE8 issue
===

I have two selects that initially render this way in both firefox and IE8:

    <select id="cntctMap_PRSNL_TITL_TXT" >
	<option value="Dr.">Dr.</option>
	<option value="Ms.">Ms.</option>
	<option value="Mrs.">Mrs.</option>
	<option selected="" value="Mr.">Mr.</option>
</select>

    <select id="cntctMap_CUST_SEGM_US_RETAIL_SALES_SMA"">
	<option value="01">Focus</option>
	<option value="02">Prospect</option>
	<option value="03">Center Of Influence</option>
</select>





So far so good as only the first select has a value returned from the server-side, the second does not.

On document load I pull the html for the second select, i.e. $("#cntctMap_CUST_SEGM_US_RETAIL_SALES_SMA").html()); 

In IE the returned string is:  
 

    <option selected value="01">Focus</option><option value="02">Prospect</option><option value="03">Center Of Influence</option>

Notice the 'selected' attribute

but in firefox it's:

    <option value="01">Focus</option><option value="02">Prospect</option><option value="03">Center Of Influence</option>

The reason this is important to me is that I want to prepend an option, i.e. $("#cntctMapCUST_SEGM_US_RETAIL_SALES_SMA").prepend(selectOption); and have the prepended option value show in the dropdown box, but I only want to do this for those selects that don't have a server-side value.

In IE, I can't tell which is which since 'selected' comes back in all cases. This is also true if I use $("#cntctMap_CUST_SEGM_US_RETAIL_SALES_SMA option:selected")); In IE, it always returns a 'selected' option.

Anyone know a way around this?

Thanks...