Inside Report (3)

Budget Director David Stockman was the most gleefully quoted White House official - and the butt of most of the jokes - at the recent AFL-CIO convention in New York.

But he was hardly alone. Economic adviser Murray Weidenbaum had his turn as a target when he admitted while the meetings were getting under way that unemployment could go up to 8.9 percent. Paul Volcker brought on more oratory after he said that the Fed does not intend to relax its tight money policies. And the President's own admissions of a deepening recession added more fuel to the fire.

Said a federation political aide: ''They really did it for us this time. They handed us our lines on a silver platter.''