Is photography Art, or just a craft?

I'm once again continuing the discussion on What is the added value of a photo? The forum at Luminous Landscape has an excellent in-depth discussion going on the topic of photography as an art form. The good part (disagreement) starts after some nice comments have been made at the beginning. Here are some quotes:

• Significant work isn't about what's in front of the lens; it's about ideas.
  
• I'm content to push boundaries while the truly great leap over them.
  
• I am increasingly, and with some reluctance, coming to the conclusion that photography even at its very best is usually not all that good.
  
• You can pretend you have a "vision" or something deep to communicate, but it's just homeopathy; do it for the placebo effect if you must, but there's nothing real going on there.
  
• The reason Ansel Adams was great is because he didn't just snap photos with a "vision" - he created photos from a process he created first. Like Edison, he knew that creativity was 99 pct. perspiration.
  
• ... all images were shot within a ten mile radius of where I live in Reading, Pennsylvania over the last six months. Does that diminish interest? No. Because someones local is anothers far, far away.
  
• Art is about ideas. It's not about finding undiscovered or unappreciated places in the world.
  
• We have often touched on the problem of originality - whether it is even possible anymore - and I doubt that we shall ever resolve the issue to a general level of satisfaction.
  
• Obviously we all start out somewhat the same, we learn about the mechanics until it becomes second nature, then we focus on composition. Mastering that, would the next choice be the creation of art?