Editor's note: Campbell Brown anchors CNN's "Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull" at 8 p.m. ET Mondays through Fridays. She delivered this commentary during the "Cutting through the Bull" segment of Friday night's broadcast.
CNN's Campbell Brown says Byrd's life demonstrates how a human being can change.
(CNN) -- We have lived through a week unlike any other in our nation's history. We are not the same country on Friday that we were on Monday.
As a way of marking just how completely the circle has turned, consider West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd. He'll be 91 years old later this month. He is the longest-serving member of the Senate.
He started his career there in 1959 -- two years before Barack Obama was even born. Now Byrd, who is physically very frail, says he's handing over the reins of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which controls roughly $1 trillion worth of spending.
This is a political footnote in any other week but this one. 
Watch Campbell Brown's commentary »
Byrd's era as one of the most powerful men in the Senate is ending in the same week that Obama was elected to the White House.
Why does this matter? It matters as a milestone of just how far we've come and how human beings can change.
Byrd was once a proud member of the Ku Klux Klan. He joined in 1942 when he was just 24 years old. At that time, a Klan official told him, "You have a talent for leadership, Bob...The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation." That was then. Byrd renounced the Klan decades ago, and today is one of the most admired men in the Senate.
A few weeks ago, he movingly urged his constituents to elect Sen. Obama.
On Tuesday night, Obama became the president-elect. A nation torn apart by slavery and an anguished Civil War less than a century-and-a-half ago resoundingly elected an African-American as its president.
Millions of Americans handed their dreams for a different America to Obama. Even those who did not support him cannot deny that tonight we live in a different nation.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Campbell Brown.
All About Robert Byrd
| Most Viewed | Most Emailed | Top Searches |
Read
VIDEO
Sound Off: 
Sit tight, we're getting to the good stuff
