This article continues a previous study on the evaluations of the strategic partnership between Romania and the United States reflected in the Romanian media, by focusing on the authorial attitudes expressed and on the discursive strategies involved, especially on the framing strategy. Recent history appears to play a significant role in the interpretations of the contemporary events which the journalists advance. In the deonticsphere, a major dichotomy in use is ‘democracy’ versus ‘communism’, as a new articulation of the good – bad opposition. From this perspective, Romania’s recent past is negatively viewed by Romanian opinion discourse. The texts enhancing the affective dimension construct a different view of the past, based on an idealized representation of the former times, which is contrasted with a negative depiction of the present. Similar to previous research on European media (Riegert, Pettersson 2011), this brief analysis shows that the strategic partnership with the United States is therefore valued from the viewpoint of Romania’s needs and capacities. Although it is often perceived as incongruent with Romania’s present conditions, media discourse also reveals the effort to integrate the new events in the previous common sense scripts of Romanian life.