COLUMN RIGHT / JAMES P. PINKERTON : Mr. President, Yon Congress Looks Hungry : Foley, Byrd, Nunn & Co. aren’t about to retreat, even for a Democrat in the White House.

When Julius Caesar went to the Roman Senate, he thought he was among friends. It’s not quite that bad for President Clinton. But any hopes that the Democratic majority in Congress would be his partner in gridlock-busting were dispelled this week.

Sam Nunn, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is openly defying Clinton on military gay rights. Such policy-making is a “shared responsibility” with Congress, Nunn reminded the President by way of live TV. Nunn’s threat to hold hearings raises the specter of another avalanche of letters and phone calls. Students of revenge detect a double irony here. First, Clinton rejected Nunn for secretary of defense in part because the Georgia lawmaker got crosswise with Hillary & Co. for having fired two gay staffers a decade ago. Now Nunn is swinging the sword the other way, knowing that the new commander-in-chief’s relationship with the military is a touchy subject.

Nunn is not the only congressional Democrat pulling rank:

* House Speaker Tom Foley announced that Clinton had made a “mistake” in calling for a 25% congressional staff cutback. Clinton quickly agreed.

* Sen. Robert Byrd, chairman of the Pork (oops--Appropriations) Committee, who has seen 10 presidents come and go, arched an eyebrow, and that was the end of the line-item veto.

* Sen. John Glenn, chairman of the Government Affairs Committee, congratulated Vice President Gore for abolishing Dan Quayle’s Council on Competitiveness. With future subpoenas in his desk drawer, Glenn suggested that any regulatory oversight of 3 million federal employees be fully transparent to Congress.

* Most dramatically, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who wants to see Clinton succeed, blew Clinton’s bratpacker aides out of their bathtubs last Sunday, harrumphing in print and on TV that not one of them had called him to consult about Clinton’s alleged economic program.

The problem Clinton faces isn’t so much ideological as institutional: He is discovering who really runs the country. The Democrats have controlled the Senate for 32 of the last 38 years, and the House continuously since 1954. After a generation of Republican presidents, the party’s center of gravity has shifted decisively to Capitol Hill. Engorged on $1 billion of political action committee money, congressional Democrats survived the Reagan Revolution. Clinton brought up the rear of the Democratic ticket last year, getting an only slightly higher percentage of the vote than Walter Mondale got in 1984. What stick can he wield?

Instead, Clinton tried co-opting Congress with carrots, hiring a record number of lawmakers to join him downtown. It doesn’t seem to have worked: Ex-congressman Leon Panetta, in his confirmation hearings to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, made it clear that he, at least, wants to cut the deficit. Everything’s on the table, and he’ll keep feet to the fire--Clinton’s feet, that is.

Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen is acting more like the four-term senator he was than the team player he theoretically is. He went on “Meet the Press,” and, to the consternation of George Stephanopoulos, proclaimed that of course there will be a middle-class tax increase. Clinton backtracked a little the next day, but Bentsen set the benchmark. A month from now, when Clinton in fact proposes a middle-class tax increase, everyone will know who swings the big stick.

At the Pentagon, congressman-turned- Defense Secretary Les Aspin has set himself up as the prudent middle man on the gay issue, helping the President and the Joint Chiefs see sweet reason. Aspin says he will do his best to keep Nunn and Congress from nullifying Clinton’s policy.

Remember “The economy, stupid?” Clinton’s response to the crowding out of his economic message is revealing. Rather than doing something decisive, Clinton is staging a Carteresque retreat to Camp David with his Cabinet. Think about the meeting dynamics: Start with 13 confirmed Cabinet secretaries, plus a bunch of people with Cabinet rank. Add White House staff and Hillary, and you have 30 people in the room. That’s not a strategy session, that’s a convention. Everyone around the table will feel obligated to say something, representing the interests of their respective bureaucracies or constituencies. Even Clinton’s legendary empathy will be stretched beyond endurance.

Caesar’s more cautious contemporary, Publius Syrus, had the right idea: “Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy.” Stark advice for the new President, but he’ll live longer if he follows it.