I agree with Ovid's post on this. View this as an opportunity. I had a similar experience where I accepted a political hot potato software project but the benefits in the end outweighed the negatives but, of course, you have to deliver.

Make sure that you write down the requirements of the project so that you don't get burned by 'we wanted this or that'. Bug your boss. Bug potential users.

Consider keeping a calendar notebook (if this is a political hot potato) so that you can make notes about your project and what people agreed to or what you accomplished. You may want to refer to http://useit.com in your development work as a reference on user interface do's and don'ts.

metadoktor

"The doktor is in."