There’s an old exchange, humorous in most contexts, that dates back to vaudeville, or perhaps even farther. A royal servant rushes to his master and exclaims, “Sire, the peasants are revolting.” To which the king fires back, “No, they’re nauseating.”

This pretty much sums up the collective feeling the liberal elite — political and media — have for the so-called Tea Party movement, which gathered en masse last weekend in Nashville, Tenn.

News reports from this “convention” centered mostly around Sarah Palin’s palm notes or former Rep. Tom Tancredo’s blatantly over-the-top remarks that revived the notion of “literacy tests” for voting. No, Mr. Tancredo was not suggesting the return of Jim Crow, but the mere mention of such “tests” provided critics unnecessary ammunition.

E.J. Dionne, a liberal columnist for The Washington Post, cited Mr. Tancredo’s noxious speech in a recent commentary. But, rather admirably, Mr. Dionne went deeper, tracing the strain of the movement’s thought back, well, closer to the eponymous event — the Boston Tea Party — and to the Anti-Federalists of the Early Republic who feared the centralization of power in a strong federal government.

Unfortunately, Mr. Dionne’s commendable reach for perspective was grossly offset by his description of President Barack Obama, first, as middle-of-the-road ditherer and, then, as a “cautious liberal.” Apparently, the writer believes the president’s penchant for Alinsky-style radicalism is a closed chapter. In any event, his implication was that America has nothing to fear from Mr. Obama’s policies. The Tea Partiers are grossly over-reacting.

True, conservative scribe Paul Greenberg also painted Mr. Obama as somewhat wishy-washy, though it must be said there’s nothing in the least indecisive in the president’s apparent desire to tax, spend, and borrow this nation into oblivion.

Lending lamentable credence to this notion is Mr. Obama’s proposed budget which, as even The New York Times’ David Sanger pointed out in a recent commentary (“Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power”), “draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water.” In short, deficits as far as the number-crunchers can see.

Therein, we contend, lies the root of the Tea Party movement’s concern — deficits and debt, and a sundering of the American legacy of bequeathing a better nation and world to posterity. Its collective hue-and-cry is “Enough is enough” — and it emanates not merely from the right but all across the political spectrum. It’s a movement that can’t be pigeon-holed. It defies definitive boundaries.

Thus, Tea Party-ism seems inchoate, as many grassroots uprisings do. But its overall sense of urgency is stunning in its clarity — precisely that America is hurtling toward the edge of a precipice, and someone, or some group, must march us back from the brink, using the Founders’ vision and intent, embodied in the Constitution, as guides. As conservative pundit Tony Blankley observed, there are but two animating Tea Party “ideas” — “Stop it now” and “Start rolling it back immediately.”

To this Mr. Blankley added, “Americans rightly believe we can build anything that needs building and fix anything that is broken. And, that we can do that by living out our nation’s founding principles and values: constitutional government, respect for private property and life, a free market — and the gumption of hard-working, inventive Americans.”

That neatly sums up the Tea Party credo and approach: Its adherents seek not so much to build as to restore. As conservatives, we view that as a source, and a force, for good.

Not “nauseating,” to be sure — and “revolting” only in a positive sense.