It's a Southern Thing
Why do so many American politicians -- from Bill Clinton to Mark Sanford -- use religious language when they make public confessions of marital infidelity? Are they truly penitent or just pandering? How can we tell the difference?
The novelist Flannery O'Connor famously wrote that the South, while not necessarily Christ-centered, was clearly "Christ-haunted." The region's politics naturally reflects its larger culture. There are many things that one can reasonably call Mark Sanford. Whether he is pandering or penitent we can't know. But what's clear is he has a certain facility with the "language of Zion," as its called, and that's a quality he shares with many of his Southern brethren and sister-en.
Attendance at churches and synagogues is higher down there than elsewhere; the Southeast is probably the last remaining part of the country where people actually expect you to have a religious affiliation. God-talk comes pretty naturally to many, so it shouldn't be surprising that scandal-enmeshed politicians--Bill Clinton, David Vitter, John Edwards--should use it. At the very least, they're trying to make a connection with their native audience.
For pretty much the same reason--albeit in reverse--politicians in other parts of the country tend to keep the spiritual to a minimum in their apologies. Rod Blagojevich went down fighting without seeking divine aid--at least overtly. Did Eliot Spitzer even mention God when he resigned as governor of New York? What about Jim McGreevey? If either did, I've forgotten... but, purely as an aside, we might note that McGreevey, whose departure from the New Jersey executive mansion included his coming out as a gay man, since went on to seminary, with plans to be ordained an Episcopal priest.