Though the record of the 98th Congress's first session was
gratifying, President Reagan said yesterday, everything ''was
not all roses.'' Gratifying was also a word House and Senate
leaders used, as Congress went home for a two-month vacation
last week. But they weren't throwing any bouquets either.  The
week stood as a symbol of the year, starting and finishing with
the national debt and passage, in the last hours Friday, of an
increase in the ceiling on Government borrowing to $1.490
trillion from $1.389 trillion. On matters of policy and
politics, there was also a representative mix.  * The
Constitution. In the House, A Democratic leadership power play
on the proposed equal rights amendment left only the party's
political strategists happy. The measure failed by six votes.
But the party got a list - ''a pretty good list,'' the Speaker
of the House called it - of Republican targets for 1984. A solid
number of the 109 Republicans and four of the 38 Democrats who
voted ''nay'' said they did so because the sus