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Former vice president Al Gore today had harsh words for lawmakers who are on the verge of allowing the government to shutdown over a bid to defund President Obama's health care law.

"The only phrase that describes it is political terrorism," Gore said at the launch of the Brookings Institution's Center for Effective Public Management in Washington. "Why does partisanship have anything to do with such a despicable and dishonorable threat to the integrity of the United States of America?"

Gore said that the effort among some Republicans in the House and Senate to demand that Congress defund Obamacare in order to approve funding for the government "cannot be allowed."

Gore noted that those lawmakers want to undo a law that was passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court.

"And now you want to threaten to not only shut down our government but to blow up the world economy unless we go back and undo what we did according to the processes of this democracy?" Gore asked. "How dare you?"

Gore has largely re-invented himself outside of elected office as an advocate of climate change policy (among other things) after narrowly losing (or winning, according to his supporters) the 2000 presidential election to President George W. Bush.

But he's still known to throw in a joke about it.

"My attitude is you win some, you lose some. Then there's that little known third category," Gore joked.